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This study aims to assess the factors that influence consumer attitude towards a destination, and to present a new conceptual framework for further investigation of the role of cognition and metacognition in tourism attitudinal research. Existing research in social psychology has established that three factors influence consumer attitude; amount of thought, valence of thinking and thought confidence. While cognition, amount and valence of thinking, has been studied previously in tourism research, metacognition, measured as thought confidence, is often overlooked in the field. To address this gap, this research note employs the self-validation hypothesis from social psychology to explore consumers' attitudes towards a tourism destination. The findings show metacognition plays a central role in forming destination attitude. Also, valence of thinking has the strongest impact on attitude. This research note contributes to tourism knowledge by exploring the cognitive and metacognitive aspects of attitude formation. In addition, this study adds value by proposing a model to guide future tourism attitudinal research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visitor attitude is fundamental to destination selection in the tourism literature. Yet, there remains a notable dearth of critical reviews to assess the current status of knowledge on the topic. This study, therefore, seeks to map and critically evaluate the state of visitor attitudinal research to set the agenda for future scholarly enquiry. A review of journal articles on the topic in four leading tourism journals was undertaken. To critically explore the literature and identify research trends, a paradigm funnel approach was used. The findings demonstrate that most studies on the topic are based on empirical research and specific theories, most notably the contact model and theory of planned behaviour. However, few publications apply analytical methods and innovative ontological and epistemological approaches. This paper provides recommendations for future studies to advance visitor attitudinal research, advocating for the use of innovative methods and theoretical approaches in parent sub-disciplines, particularly psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]