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| CURRENT RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS OF OVERSEAS STUDIES ON TOURIST DESTINATION BRANDING |
| LIU Li-juan1,2, LI Tian-yuan1 |
1. College of Tourism and Service Management, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China;
2. College of Management, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010051, China |
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Abstract With increasing competition, higher substitutability, more tourism information and tourist experience,the battles for tourists in tomorrow's marketplace will be fought not over price but over hearts and minds. As the most powerful marketing weapon that is available to contemporary marketers, destination branding has gained attention since the late 1990s. But research related to aspects of what is now regarded as destination branding had been reported long prior to this time, such as: destination image, destination positioning, destination slogans, however, at that time they were not in the context of branding. This paper summarized relevant studies overseas regarding tourist destination branding, which includes the researches on the concepts of destination branding, construction of destination brand, communication of destination brand, management of destination brand and evaluation of destination brand. From the review we can see, the breadth and depth of the destination branding research has been enhanced in recent years, the whole process from developing brand identity, positioning the brand in the market to measuring the performance of the brand was involved. But as can be seen, the consolidated definition for destination branding hasn't built up, some potential research gaps still exist, such as implementing destination brand umbrella strategies, involving different stakeholders in branding, generating different brand positioning strategies to suit the needs of different markets, evaluating destination brand performance etc. We should pay more attention to the issues mentioned above, to solve the problem through building umbrella brand to represent the interests of a diverse range of active stakeholders, extracting a narrow brand positioning proposition from a diverse range of things and emphasizing specific attributes to different market segments, representing stakeholders' diverse perspectives and interests, absorbing local residents in branding process and making brand identity represents their sense of place, tracking the performance of destination brand etc. Domestic study on destination branding is less than overseas, the paper reviews the studies of this area in the hope of providing researchers and practitioners with a guide to develop, implement and measure destination brands. We hope that more attention will be directed by academic researchers to the potential research gaps proposed.
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Received: 20 May 2011
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2012, Vol. 27 
