---
title: "Destination image research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “destination image” appeared in 316 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in tourism and hospitality (273), management (18) and marketing (17)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/destination-image
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/destination-image.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “destination image” appeared in 316 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in tourism and hospitality (273), management (18) and marketing (17). (as of 2026-11-04)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-04T00:03:46+09:00
window: 2026-10-06 to 2026-11-04
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “destination image”

Research on “destination image” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “destination image” appeared in 316 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in tourism and hospitality (273), management (18) and marketing (17).
- 21 of them were published in 2025, against 27 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were City University of Macau (7), Macao University of Tourism (5) and Sun Yat-sen University (5).
- The journals publishing most of them were Journal of Destination Marketing & Management (34), Tourism Management (16) and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management (14).
- The most-cited of them is “A model of perceived image, memorable tourism experiences and revisit intention” (Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 2017), with 825 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 25 | 22 | 29 | 36 | 31 | 31 | 26 | 37 | 17 | 19 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 27 | 24 | 36 | 44 | 36 | 37 | 28 | 40 | 21 | 23 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Journal of Destination Marketing & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-destination-marketing-management.md) | 34 |
| 2 | [Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/tourism-management.md) | 16 |
| 3 | [Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-hospitality-and-tourism-management.md) | 14 |
| 4 | [Tourism Management Perspectives](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/tourism-management-perspectives.md) | 11 |
| 5 | [Information Technology & Tourism](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-technology-tourism.md) | 10 |
| 6 | [Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-outdoor-recreation-and-tourism.md) | 7 |
| 7 | [Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-tourism-research-empirical-insights.md) | 5 |
| 8 | [Place Branding and Public Diplomacy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/place-branding-and-public-diplomacy.md) | 3 |
| 9 | [Annals of Tourism Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-tourism-research.md) | 2 |
| 10 | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 2 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [City University of Macau](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/city-university-of-macau.md) | 7 |
| 2 | Macao University of Tourism | 5 |
| 3 | [Sun Yat-sen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sun-yat-sen-university.md) | 5 |
| 4 | [Kyung Hee University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/kyung-hee-university.md) | 4 |
| 5 | [Macau University of Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/macau-university-of-science-and-technology.md) | 4 |
| 6 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 3 |
| 7 | [Huaqiao University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/huaqiao-university.md) | 3 |
| 8 | [Universidad de Granada](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/universidad-de-granada.md) | 3 |
| 9 | [Universitat de València](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/universitat-de-valencia.md) | 3 |
| 10 | [University of Central Florida](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-central-florida.md) | 3 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 39 |
| 2 | United States | 16 |
| 3 | Spain | 15 |
| 4 | Macao | 15 |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 7 |
| 6 | Portugal | 7 |
| 7 | South Korea | 5 |
| 8 | Poland | 5 |
| 9 | Austria | 4 |
| 10 | Australia | 4 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [tourism promotion](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/tourism-promotion.md) | 31 |
| 2 | destination marketing organizations | 12 |
| 3 | [destination management](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/destination-management.md) | 11 |
| 4 | travel intention | 10 |
| 5 | user-generated content | 9 |
| 6 | cognitive image | 8 |
| 7 | emotional pictures | 8 |
| 8 | tourist perceptions | 8 |
| 9 | [behavioral intention](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/behavioral-intention.md) | 7 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 825 | 7.4 | [A model of perceived image, memorable tourism experiences and revisit intention](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2017.06.004) | [Journal of Destination Marketing & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-destination-marketing-management.md) | 2017-07-10 | Hongmei Zhang, Yan Wu, Dimitrios Buhalis |
| 2 | 572 | 7.4 | [Destination image and tourist behavioural intentions: A meta-analysis](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104154) | [Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/tourism-management.md) | 2020-05-19 | Mona Afshardoost, Mohammad Sadegh Eshaghi |
| 3 | 481 | 4.1 | [Effects of tourism information quality in social media on destination image formation: The case of Sina Weibo](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2017.02.009) | [Information & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-management.md) | 2017-02-21 | Sungeun Kim, Kyung Young Lee, Soo Il Shin et al. |
| 4 | 400 | 6.1 | [Understanding memorable tourism experiences and behavioural intentions of heritage tourists](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2021.100621) | [Journal of Destination Marketing & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-destination-marketing-management.md) | 2021-05-25 | Seyyed Mostafa Rasoolimanesh, Siamak Seyfi, C. Michael Hall et al. |
| 5 | 359 | 4.0 | [Role of halal-friendly destination performances, value, satisfaction, and trust in generating destination image and loyalty](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2019.05.007) | [Journal of Destination Marketing & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-destination-marketing-management.md) | 2019-05-25 | Amr Al‐Ansi, Heesup Han |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “destination image”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/destination-image

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-destination-image,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “destination image”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/destination-image}},
  urldate = {2026-11-04},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).