Image Positioning for Spa Destinations: Focusing on the Top 10 Spa Destinations in Korea

온천관광지 이미지 포지셔닝: 국내 10대 온천을 중심으로

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the image similarity and attribute recognition of the top 10 rated spa destinations (Chungnam Deoksan, Chungnam Dogo, Busan Dongrae, Daejeon Yuseong, Chungnam Asan, Gyeongbuk Bomun, Chungbuk Suanbo, Gyeongnam Jangyu, Chungnam Onyang, & Gyeongbol Bugok) in Korea based on the visits to these spa places by the customers. Research design, data, and methodology - The survey of this study was conducted on the visitors to the top 10 spa destinations in Korea from April 8 ~ April 21, 2017, and a total of 300 questionnaires were distributed. Of them, effective questionnaires used in the final study were a total of 241. In this study, empirical analysis was made through frequency analysis, factor analysis, and multidimensional scaling ALSCAL(spinning symmetry for image similarity and rectangle for attributes recognition) by using the Statistics Package SPSS 24.0. Results - According to the analysis result of spa destination image similarity, the stress level was 0.16453 and the level of the stress was good. Moreover, the coefficient of determination (RSQ) was, which had a description of each aspect of the spa destination, 0.79908. According to the results of attribute recognition, the stress value of 0.11805 represents a degree of conformity, and the coefficient of determination(RSQ) appeared at 0.98665. Therefore, the results of this analysis are that the similarities between spa destinations and the attribute recognition of the spa destinations is a suitable model that is properly expressed in two dimensions. Conclusions - First, according to the analysis result of image similarity, Deoksan & Dogo spa revealed similar images, as well as the Dongrae and Yuseong spa, while on the contrary Asan, Bomun, Suanbo spa has different images from the rest. Second, according to the results of attribute recognition, Asan and Onyang spa has competitiveness in terms of accessibility to spa destination; Yuseong, Dongrae, Jangyu spa in terms of spa facilities, spa tourism conditions, and service & shopping conditions. while spa water quality and spa costs showed low attribute reflection for all 10 spas. Therefore, the spa visitors cannot recognize the differentiation of spa water quality and spa costs.