Does linguistic diversity make destinations more sophisticated? Exploring the effects on destination personality

Today's destinations are gradually moving toward linguistic diversity to help tourists obtain a better experience. Accordingly, using diverse languages is developing as a noteworthy destination marketing and management measure. Applying destination personality theory, this research examines the impact of linguistic diversity on destination personality, as well as tourists' attitudes and behavior across five studies. With different populations, Studies 1, 2, and 3 found that linguistic diversity enhances sophisticated destination personality, tourists' attitudes and visit intentions, exploring the role of the number of languages and language disparity in constructing linguistic diversity while ruling out the alternative explanation of other destination personalities. Study 4 and Study 5 revealed the moderating roles of destination type and travel goal. This research contributes to theory and practice in language and destination personality and enriches the growing literature on tourists' attitudes toward destination marketing and management. •Linguistic diversity boosts sophisticated destination personality.•Linguistic diversity positively influences tourists' attitudes.•This positive effect is attenuated for the global destination.•The positive effect is mitigated when tourists' travel goal is authenticity.•The number of languages and language disparity are crucial for language diversity.