Role of tourist destination development in building its brand image: A conceptual model/El papel del desarrollo del destino turistico en la construccion de su imagen de marca: un modelo conceptual.
| Autor | Manhas, Parikshat S. |
| Cargo | Article |
-
Introduction
Tourism is an international/global industry that captures the complex interaction of a variety of environmental factors. Tourism development draws upon a multitude of disciplines and subject areas such as anthropology, business, communication, cultural, economics, geography, history, hospitality, politics, psychology, retailing, sociology, and transportation etc. The international and interdisciplinary nature of the field of tourism is well recognized by academics, professionals and policy makers. A testimony to this is the publication Tourism: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal, the first issue of which was published as early as 1953 in Zagreb, Croatia. The journal Tourism has been published in English language since 2000.
Vrdoljak-Salamon and Corak (2012) carried out a content analysis of the research articles published in the journal Tourism for the period 2000-2011. The authors note that there were 20 special issues of this journal during 2000-2011. However in their content analysis, the articles from the special issues were not included in order to assess the trends in the field independent of special issues. A total of 165 articles (excluding articles in special issues) were classified by the authors in 9 categories. It should be noted that an article could be listed in multiple categories depending upon its scope and coverage. The analysis of the authors reveals the following 9 subject areas (number of articles under each subject area): tourism theory, research, education, and human resources (35), tourism and economy (72), tourism and market (62), tourism and society (56), tourism and space (41), tourism policy and organization (19), registration and forecasting in tourism (8), types of tourism (84), and miscellaneous (6). This content analysis covered contributions from 51 different countries on the six continents (excludingAntarctica).The above analysis indicatesthatthejournal and the field of tourism are truly international and interdisciplinary.
The tourism industry, which benefits transportation, accommodation, catering, entertainment, and retailing sectors, has been blooming in the past few decades. Tourism has been a critical factor in the economic development strategy of many countries (Lea, 1988) and tourist destinations. In recent years, tourism has been one of the most important and consistent growth industries worldwide, and is currently held to be one of the major service industries (Bansal & Eiselt, 2004; Zang et al., 2004). It is well recognized that tourism carries advantages for any country or destination and it should be utilized as an instrument for development at the particular destinations especially which are rich in terms of their tourist attractions (Wanill, 2001; Bodlender, Jefferson, Jenkins, & Lickorish). A tourist destination is then simply described as a "geographical location to which a person is travelling" (Metelka, 1990). Buhalis (2000) broadens this definition by stating that the geographical location "is understood by its visitors as a unique entity, with a political and legislative framework for tourism marketing and planning". Lynch and Tinsley (2001) state that most studies tend to look at the tourist destination as a "system containing a number of components such as attractions, accommodation, transport, and other services and infrastructure". Each of these components is "dependent upon other parts for success in attracting, servicing, and satisfying the tourist" (Mill & Morrison, 1985) According to Laws (1995) a destination's primary resources comprise its climate, ecology, traditions and architecture. Its secondary resources are then those developments brought in especial for tourists, such as catering, accommodation, transport and activities. In their study of 10 European countries, Manrai and Manrai (1993) identified three broad dimensions differentiating the tourism potential of these 10 countries. These were "necessities", "attractions" and "environment".
Several researchers have conducted studies on the relationship between tourism planning and development, visitor satisfaction, host perception (Tang, 2008) and psychology of tourist experience (Larsen, 2007). Tourism is regarded as an important and consistent growth industry in the service sector worldwide (Bansal & Eiselt, 2004; Zang et al., 2004). Destination marketing and management is one of the major concerns of any country or any region or destination in any part of the world. The nature of the destination, resources available, hosts, the visitor's behavior and experiences and management of tourism resources optimally are extremely important research topics today.
Under the tourism and market category identified by Vrdoljak-Salamon and Corak (2012), a total of 62 articles were included. The main focus seems to be on destination (21 articles) followed by tourist demand (16 articles). The other subject areas under this category (and number of articles) include marketing in tourism (8), market research (7), tourism and prices (4), competitiveness (4), and tourist expenditure (2). Destination is the product which the stakeholders in the tourism industry try to market to their customers, namely tourists. Considering the global economy we live in today, the competition for tourist expenditures is fierce and tourism marketers resort to a variety of marketing mix strategies including destination (product) development, pricing, promotion and distribution including access to the destination and information about it. Tourism marketers have to compete against companies worldwide who are also trying to attract the tourists to visit their respective destination product. The study of tourism competition is thus an extremely important subject. Yet this particular subject area has received relatively less attention from the researchers as is evident from the above analysis of research on various topics under the tourism and market category.
Our research deals with this important yet relatively less researched subject of tourism competitiveness. Specifically we study the role the destination development plays in building a brand image for the...
Para continuar leyendo
Solicita tu pruebaCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
