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

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