Analysing the Emotional Appeal of a Website through Verbal and Pictorial Stimuli
When looking for information about a tourism product in the majority of cases websites are the first contact most tourists have with a tourism product. Moreover, the first impression of a destination or tourist facility is crucial for the evaluation of these. As pictures and text are a main part of a tourism website, a tourist’s opinion will be influenced by them. So, through the visual and textual stimuli an experience and especially emotions are evoked. Therefore, it is of major importance to know what a picture and a text initiates and why. Hence, this research study analyzes pictures and text on tourism websites related to their emotions in order to catch the visual appeal and in succession the induced image. Results show that verbal stimuli are used skilfully while a third of the pictorial stimuli are perceived negative. Therefore improvements are necessary to create a positive overall perception.