SERBIAN ADAPTATION OF THE BRAND PERSONALITY SCALE (BPS): AN APPLICATION TO TOURISM DESTINATIONS

Abstract

The main aim of this research was to validate a Serbian adaptation of the Brand Personality Scale (BPS: Aaker, 1997) while applying it to tourist destinations. The BPS was developed as a measure of five personality traits of any kind of brand: Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness. In the first study that was carried out on 192 (76% female) tourists from student population, exploratory factor analysis of the BPS resulted in a four-factor structure: Competence, Excitement, Sophistication, and Sincerity. The factor Ruggedness was not extracted in this study. In the second study that was carried out on 490 (56% females)tourists from general population, the confirmatory factor analysis was applied in order to validate the four–factor solution from the first study. Results indicated that this solution, with certain allocations and reductions of items, reached a satisfactory fit. The factors Excitement and Sincerity mainly matched the same factors from the original Aaker’s model, while the factors Competence and Sophistication had somewhat different structure. The factor Excitement represented destination as vibrant, energetic, and youthful, while the factor Sincerity represented destination as honest, warm, and welcome. The factor Competence represented a successful and technically modern destination. It retained only two items from the original model (technical and leader), but the rest of items captured the same aspect of destination, such as contemporary and glamorous destination in which upper class status were featured. The factor Sophistication also retained only two items from the original model (feminine and good-looking), which were related to physical attractiveness and appearance, but the rest of the items captured skilled and industrious destination. It seems that sophisticated destinations are those that strongly rely on physical appearance to achieve success. It could be concluded that there is a cultural specificity in describing the tourist destinations.