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.
Likert (1–5, not at all to very much) and frequency count items
Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.
Two subscale scores. Informational familiarity shapes projected image before visitation; experiential familiarity shapes received image after visits. Familiarity index (combining both) produces a typology: unfamiliar non-visitors, informed non-visitors, first-time visitors, and repeat visitors — each holding systematically different destination images. Familiarity moderates the relationship between image and satisfaction: highly familiar tourists have more calibrated expectations and show different satisfaction patterns than first-time visitors.
Baloglu, S. (2001). Image variations of Turkey by familiarity index: Informational and experiential dimensions. Tourism Management, 22(2), 127–133.
Free access to 2455+ psychometric scales at PsychScales