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| A RESEARCH ON CHARACTERISTICS OF INBOUND TOURISM BRAND IMAGE IN XI'AN |
| BAI Kai1,2 |
1. School of Tourism and Environment;Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710062, China;
2. Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China |
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Abstract Brand image is an essential part of a powerful brand. A strong brand can differentiate a product/service from its competitors. For consumers, strong brands reduce search costs, minimize perceived risks, indicate high quality, and satisfy consumers' functional and emotional needs. A number of theoretical frameworks exist to understand brands, brand image, brand building and brand management. Despite the significant importance of brand image in all of these frameworks, much ambiguity exists as to its relationship with destination image and destination brand. The idea of branding a destination is a relatively new one and the academic investigation of such a process is still in its infancy. Although the words ‘brand’, ‘branding’ and ‘destination image’ have already appeared in many academic studies and industry conferences, no apparent effort has been made to distinguish between destination image and destination branding. The author tries to stimulate thinking on destination branding to outline its relationship with destination image. As the choices of destinations are available when consumers increase, an effective destination ‘positioning’ strategy becomes necessary. A key component of this positioning process is the creation and management of a distinctive and appealing destination image. And thus, a considerable amount of time and money is spent establishing a positive image in order to influence consumers' decision-making process. According to the theory analysis, adopting Aaker's brand personality scale, this study aims to identify the characteristics of inbound tourism brand image in Xi'an. The findings indicate that (1) the characteristics of inbound tourism brand image in Xi'an are excitement, placidity, and modernization; (2) the tourism destination brand image in Xi'an is partly accepted by inbound tourists. The author proposes a cultural interaction effects model between the consumer self-image and the destination image.
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Received: 09 October 2010
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2011, Vol. 26 
