Logging Brand Personality Online: Website Content Analysis of Middle Eastern and North African Destinations

Abstract

The travel and tourism industry has always been regarded as having the greatest potential in promoting peace and social harmony throughout an advancing global society. Despite this innate characteristic of bringing world cultures together, travel and tourism is vulnerable to existing economic, social and geopolitical conditions (Clements & Georgiou, 1998). As apprehension and insecurity creeps in, the image of a destination changes in the mind of a would-be traveller. Any perceived or actual risk associated with travelling to a region or country where one’s basic need for personal security is compromised affects the tourism system. Several scholars have assessed the impact of terrorism and security issues on tourism from a Western, European, and Asian Pacific perspective (Chen, Chen, 2003; Henderson, 2003). Few researchers have assessed how destinations in the MENA manage their brand image from the perspective of the traveller while these destinations are at the heart of civil, religious and political unrest. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the perceptions of travellers to Middle East and North African (MENA) destinations through their Internet travel blog postings. Using Aaker’s (1997) brand personality framework as a guide, the study compared keywords that potentially describes MENA for the purposes of developing marketing campaigns with positive messages about the region as a tourism destination. The study utilized CATPAC, a neural network analysis computer program optimized for analyzing text, to examine 346 online travel journal entries (travel blogs) from travellers who were visiting or had already visited any of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. Findings from this research suggest that the dimensions relating to brand personality for MENA are excitement and ruggedness. A discussion follows on the importance of Internet blogs as a source of customer information useful in conducting market research.