Destination Branding: For Competing in International Tourism Market

Abstract

Tourism is the most crucial factor in world trade as it is the most effective and easiest means for earning foreign exchange, by providing employment to the local people of the country and by increasing the market capabilities. Tourism also works as medium of social cultural exchange. Not much travel and tourism literature exists in this area of destination branding in tourism. The availability of literature regarding destination branding is very low and all the literature related to this topic has surfaced recently. The first conference in such topic took place in 1996 and the first journal related to such article got published in late 1990s and the first book got published in 2002. This destination branding technique is important as it attract new visitors toward the country. The destination branding strategy also works effectively when the destination is facing a down trend in tourist arrival either because of natural constraints or because of political constraints. Here for the purpose of the study we have analysed the data of foreign tourist arrival in Malaysia, Japan and India. And then try to formulate a conceptual model for destination branding which can be applied on any type of destination whether the destination belongs to rural or urban, hilly or sea, desert or plain area. The model that we developed is Destination Brand Positioning and can fit in any type of destination.