Tourism experience, country image and post-visit intentions: a study on international tourists in Italy

The main purpose of the paper is to analyse the influence of international tourism experience on general country image (GCI) and tourism destination image (TDI) and to assess how each of these constructs - and the interaction between them - affect post-visit attitudes toward products “made-in” the tourism destination. In many contexts the relationship between the image of products, linked to a specific country-of-origin, and the image of the same place, as a tourist destination, has become an effective marketing tool with significant implications for the strategies adopted by businesses and local governments. The objective of the research is to propose an interpretative model aimed to verify the relationship between tourism experience and country-of-origin effect (Coe), particularly in how the travel experience in the country is able to influence attitudes and intentions of foreign consumer demand for local products