Representations of a Destination Brand in Online Tourism Information Sources: The Case of Slovenia

Abstract

In the highly competitive global tourism industry, place branding has become a widely used tool in the promotion of tourism destinations. The creation and communication of a unique, positive, and recognizable identity is considered key for destinations to remain competitive and vital for relatively unknown destinations to raise awareness among international audiences. However, the brand-building process has become more challenging than ever, as destinations around the world seek to promote themselves in much the same way. Consequently, destinations have begun to move away from traditional marketing strategies towards experiential marketing that seeks to engage potential tourists by not only communicating the characteristics of the place but also appealing to their senses and emotions. The Internet has become the key medium for the communication of destination brands, typically through national tourism websites. However, in the modern information search process, tourists have a multitude of resources available to them that do not always correspond with the internally created brand identity. This article considers the case of Slovenia. Tourism stakeholders have engaged in the process of building and communicating a rich and coherent experiential brand. Yet, Slovenia as a tourism destination is subject to the representations of external sources that have not adopted or successfully incorporated the essence of Brand Slovenia. In this article, tourism information websites are examined through the use of content analysis to investigate the differences in representations of the destination between the internally and externally produced sources.