Academic interest in several ®elds and disciplines regarding
the concept of image has been pervasive since the early works of
Boulding (1956) and Martineau (1958) who proposed that human
behavior is dependent upon image rather than objective reality.
These early works and subsequent embracement of the image concept
have led to ``image theory'' which suggests that the world is a
psychological or distorted representation of objective reality residing
and existing in the mind of the individual (Myers 1968). A commonly
adopted de®nition of image is that it is a set of beliefs, ideas,
and impressions that people have of a place or destination
(Crompton 1979a; Kotler et al 1993). It is a mental representation
of an object or place which is not physically before the observer
(Fridgen 1987). Assael (1984) de®ned image as a total perception of
a product that is formed by processing information from various
sources over time. These de®nitions mostly emphasized perceptual/
cognitive component of image.