Measures two distinct forms of tourist familiarity with a destination. Informational familiarity captures knowledge accumulated through indirect sources — media, word-of-mouth, guidebooks, and advertising. Experiential familiarity captures knowledge accumulated through direct personal visits. Familiarity is a critical moderator of destination image research: the image held by uninformed non-visitors is more holistic and stereotype-driven; the image held by experienced visitors is more complex, attribute-specific, and differentiated. Familiarity effects are foundational to understanding how destination image evolves across the tourist lifecycle — from non-visitor through first-time visitor to repeat visitor.
Baloglu, S. (2001). Image variations of Turkey by familiarity index: Informational and experiential dimensions. Tourism Management, 22(2), 127–133.
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