Conceptualizing and validating the psychic distance construct in the context of tourism

This paper examines the validation of the psychic distance measure in tourism context. Two different groups of tourists with different cultural backgrounds of individualist (Australian) and collectivist (South Korean) are studied for the purpose of this research. Sequential steps are undertaken to test the scale validity by selecting items from both marketing and tourism literature. The exploratory factor analysis resulted in measurement constructs with two dimensions and confirmatory factor analysis confirm the validity of the construct in both groups. In addition, independent sample t-test confirms the difference between individualist and collectivist groups related to perceived psychic distance.