Does the Order of Visiting Destinations Affect Their Recall and Evaluation?

Abstract

Tourists frequently engage in visiting a sequence of cities, sites, and destinations. Previous psychology studies have shown the impact of order on recall and favorability; key concepts are the serial position effect and primacy and recency influences. A field-based natural experiment collected posttrip responses from 179 international tourists to four major Iranian cities. The researchers examined the relationships between the order of visiting the cities, tourists’ recall and judgment. Results from the manipulations revealed there is a relationship (mainly Primacy) between position in the itinerary and their recall. For evaluative judgments, both primacy and recency effects were linked to order of visiting. The work has implications for the presentations of tourism units in a sequence and sharpens the way we use the expression memorable in tourism research.