| Summary: | The Maritime Power strategy is of great and far-reaching significance for the high-quality development of China. With the development of this strategy in recent years, academics and the government have been increasingly focusing on marine and national defense issues. It is of great theoretical value and practical significance to clarify the destination images of China's marine national defense tourism and its mode of communication to enhance tourists' national identity. Using data from 15 marine national defense tourist attractions, this study analyzes the official projections and tourist perceptions of marine national defense tourism in China. Key elements were identified using social semantic network and image depth analyses. The Jaccard distance score and Stuart Hall's encoding and decoding theory were applied to explore the internal differences in projections and perceptions in different regions and propagation modes. The results are as follows: (1) China's marine national defense tourism destination images have distinct regional characteristics. The cultural and military images of the northern coastal region were more distinct than the other two regions, the maritime and educational significance of the eastern coastal region was more prominent than the other two regions, and the historical and international characteristics of the southern coastal region were more significant than the other two regions. (2) The projected and perceived destination images of China's marine national defense tourism are focused on tourism. Each scenic spot emphasizes its own social and educational value, while tourists are more impressed by interactive and experiential events than by those ornamental events. 3) The dominant and consultative modes are the main dissemination modes of China's marine national defense tourism destination images, and the dominant mode is mainly embodied in national identity, which is presented through concrete cultural resources, educational activities, and so on. The negotiation model is more significant on tourism activities and tourism infrastructure, while no evident manifestations were observed in the oppositional model. Finally, this study provides recommendations for the construction and promotion of China's marine national defense tourism destination images, such as improving the infrastructure and services to enhance the tourism image, playing an active role in education to strengthen the national identity, broadening the channels of image dissemination, and paying attention to the management of guest-host co-construction.
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