Destination Brand Personality Research Articles

Destination Brand Personality, Self-Congruity Theory and the Intention to Visit a Destination

Destination Brand Personality, Self-Congruity Theory and the Intention to Visit a Destination

An analysis of destination brand personality and emotions: a comparison study

In order to capture a strong position in the highly competitive tourism market, tourism destinations need to better understand the technological dynamics and develop proactive strategies. Social media spaces provide new opportunities for destination marketing organizations to reach out to consumers and learn about tourists’ opinion regarding the destination. Moreover, positioning a destination around the feelings it generates, and its ability to offer visitors unique experiences, relationships, meanings and self-expressions is a strong competitive advantage nowadays. Hence, this study analyzes the concept of destination brand personality and emotions reflected in TripAdvisor reviews among the different service settings (restaurants, hotels, and sights). Comparing the results with a survey-based method reveals interesting differences. In particular, the dimensions of excitement, sophistication and competence are significantly more represented in social media than in the conventional survey. Furthermore, feelings of anger, disgust and sadness are significantly more present in social media. Hence, this paper illustrates how tourists connect themselves in an emotional manner to a city and how this varies among the different touristic settings. Marketers can hereby modify and/or steer the experience developing new experience based upon UGC knowledge.

Experience-based Brand Personality as a Source of Value Co-creation: The Case of Lofoten

A tourist destination's brand personality (TDBP) can be measured by asking tourists which personality traits they associate with the destination. A tourist who experiences a TDBP that is in congruence with the tourist's self-image will favor the tourist destination. Such congruence between the tourist and the tourist destination facilitates co-creation of experiences during the holiday. This paper replicates and extends previous research by investigating the reliability and validity of a measurement instrument for tourist destination brand personality. It shows how this measurement instrument can assist firms and tourists in their co-creation of experience value by providing a foundation for dialogue, access, risk assessment and transparency. Questionnaire data were collected from a sample of 234 tourists on holiday in a nature-based tourist destination. The analysis shows that the measurement instrument works relatively well, and it indicates that the brand personality of this tourist destination consists of four dimensions: ruggedness, sophistication, naturalness and activeness. This study validates a measuring instrument for tourist destinations' brand personality using a sample consisting exclusively of tourists who are on holiday at the investigated destination. Implications and opportunities for further research are suggested.

Golf destinations’ brand personality: the case of the Algarve

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a measurement brand personality scale for golf destinations and simultaneously to assess the destination personality of the Algarve as a golf destination. Design/methodology/approach – A set of 36 unrepeated items, generated from individual interviews with experts in tourism and golf in the Algarve and from promotional texts in golf-related websites, was the base for a survey instrument. The survey was applied to a convenient sample of 600 golf players in the Algarve, and 545 (valid) questionnaires were analysed to refine the scale. Golf players assessed the Algarve as a golf destination and the components of the relational brand personality (functional, symbolic and experiential). Two multi-dimensional brand personality models were estimated by using structural equation modelling. Findings – Findings indicate that golf players ascribe personality characteristics to destinations. The brand personality of the Algarve is translated into three main dimensions enjoyableness, distinctiveness and friendliness when tourists/golf players reveal their overall perception of the destination. The brand personality of golf destination Algarve is reflected in the dimensions reliability, hospitality, uniqueness and attractiveness when tourists/golf players assess the components of the relational brand personality. Refined scales consisting of 10 and 11 items were finally derived meeting both reliability and validity requirements. Research limitations/implications – The analysis is based on personality perceptions of only one golf destination. Another limitation is the fact that both interviewees and respondents had great difficulty in expressing themselves tending to use repeated words. Also, the fact that the research was conducted in two languages since translation and retroversion of the items may lead to some loss in meaning or sense. Moreover, the experiential component of the relational brand personality might have been further explored to relate golf destination brand personality to the tourist experience. Practical implications – Important contributions are that both qualitative and quantitative approaches should be used in the measurement of brand personality. A reliable and valid tool to assess golf destination brand personality is a valuable marketing management resource. Social implications – Destination managers will be able to plan marketing actions that will help to change general destination attitudes and product-destination attitudes, establishing the destination brand and creating differentiation, resulting in increased preference and usage, higher emotional ties, trust and loyalty towards the brand. Also, marketers should place great emphasis on building a connection between destination personality and tourists/golf players’ self-concept. Originality/value – This is one of the first pieces of research to validate a specific brand personality scale to golf destinations. Results of this study make important theoretical contributions to the understanding of brand personality in the context of tourism destinations in general, and golf destinations in particular.

Towards a taxonomy of a golf-destination brand personality: Insights from the Algarve golf industry

Abstract This research explores how the golf industry in the Algarve positions golf destinations in terms of personality traits. It reveals the results of interviews conducted with tourism and golf-industry stakeholders in the Algarve. The objective of the study was to generate potential golf-destination-brand personality traits. Golf industry stakeholders tested the traits on the ‘Big-five’ model, on the Brand Personality Scale as well as the descriptors of destination image found in the literature, in order to identify the most appropriate ones to describe a golf destination. Free-elicitation interviews generated a total of 482 different potential golf destination brand personality traits, while 15 checklist interviews generated 92 items. From those, a set of 47 items was sent to a panel of eight expert judges for validation. The experts validated 30 potential golf-destination-brand personality traits while 17 items were eliminated. The findings also identified attributes that stakeholders consider to be essential for a golf destination, as well as specific characteristics of the Algarve that should be associated with the brand in order to guarantee differentiation. The paper concludes by stating how the scale can be useful for marketing and positioning purposes.

A Study of Destination Brand Personality for Đà Nẵng Tourism

Destination brand personality is a rather new approach taken by many academic and empirical researches. Destination brand personality became an important structure to understand a tourist’s choice process, and a way of differentiating destinations and enhancing their competitiveness. The research focuses on analyses of destination brand personalities of Đà Nẵng based on domestic tourists’ perception in order to identify dimensions and strengths of personalities associated with Đà Nẵng as a destination. The results show that destination brand personality can be identified through three dimensions: sincerity, excitement, and competence-charming, which consist of thirteen items. Among them, sincerity and excitement are two principal factors of destination personality, compliant with findings by most previous researches. The new factor for destination of Đà Nẵng is competence-charming.

South Korea's Medical Tourism Destination Brand Personality and the Influence of Personal Values

Adopting Aaker's brand personality scale, this study aimed to determine South Korea's medical tourism destination personality. Based on a survey of US consumers, the results indicate that South Korea's medical tourism destination personality comprised three dimensions: sincerity, competence, and ruggedness. Furthermore, sincerity and competence positively influenced consumers' willingness to travel to South Korea for medical care. This study also found that personal values, in particular excitement, self-respect, sense of belonging, and being well respected, were significant positive predictors of South Korea's medical tourism destination personality. Marketing implications of the findings are discussed, and suggestions for future research are offered. This study serves as a starting point for further research on medical tourism destination brand personality.

Portrayed and perceived online destination personality of select island destinations

This study intends to delineate the match or mismatch between portrayed and perceived online destination personality of select tropical island destinations such as Barbados, Fiji, Seychelles, Hawaii and Mauritius considering their destination marketing organization (DMO) websites as a stimuli. A computer-aided content analysis using WordStat software was employed to uncover the portrayed destination personality dimensions, while the perceived personality dimensions were measured with the help of an online survey using Aaker's [Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34, 347–356] brand personality scale. This study demonstrates an online approach to assess a destination's brand personality dimensions. It offers insights to DMOs on the transfer of destination personality online through their websites. It also offers the means and measures to assess the association between the portrayed and perceived destination personality.

Destination Brand Personality: An Application to Spanish Tourism

AbstractIn the current economic climate, destinations increasingly attempt to differentiate themselves. Brand personality (BP) is a useful tool for understanding differentiation in terms of identity and image perceptions. The authors are unaware of any prior study that develops and analyses to what extent Jennifer Aaker's BP scale is reliable and valid in destination branding.This paper studies UK visitors to two specific Spanish destinations: Granada and Torremolinos. The study concludes that the BP model is second‐order. The results help to more adequately establish the personality trait dimensions that create favourable evaluations of tourism destinations. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Destination brand personality: searching for personality traits on golf-related websites

This research uses promotional texts in golf-related websites as a source to identify potential brand personality traits. Promotional texts were extracted from 144 golf-related websites, divided into three categories. In order to reduce the number of items in the list, a criteria of 2% of the overall frequencies (n = 963) was adopted and 10 items were selected as potential golf destination brand personality traits. These items were validated and allocated to the components of the relational brand personality by a panel of judges. None of the selected items belonged to the “Big-Five” model of personality and only two items belong to Aaker's scale. These results show that there is not a strong presence of “human characteristics” when promoting golf destinations online.

The Effects of Destination Brand Personality on Destination Attachment and Destination Loyalty

The Effects of Destination Brand Personality on Destination Attachment and Destination Loyalty

Destination Brand Personality: Visitor Perceptions of a Regional Tourism Destination

Despite a growing body of work on destination branding in general, particularly at a country or nation level, there has been little investigation of whether or not tourists do attribute brand personality characteristics to tourism destinations and whether or not tourists' perceived self-image and the "brand personality" of destinations are related. The aim of the study presented in this article was to explore the relationships among four key constructs proposed for destination branding and choice process: tourist travel motivations, destination brand personality, self-congruity, and visitation. The study involved a survey of tourists' perceptions of a branded regional tourism destination—the Whitsundays—in Queensland, Australia. Data were collected from a total of 277 participants yielding a response rate of 62%. The results provided general support for the proposal that tourists ascribe personality characteristics to destination. Furthermore, the study found that there is a level of congruity between tourists' self-image and their perceptions of the destination brand personality.

Linking Travel Motivation, Tourist Self-Image and Destination Brand Personality

Despite a growing body of work on destination branding, there has been little investigation of whether or not tourists attribute brand personality characteristics to tourism destinations and whether or not an emotional connection exists based on tourists' perceived self-image and the ‘brand personality’ of destinations. The aim of this study is to explore the links among four key constructs proposed for the destination branding and choice processtourist needs, destination brand personality, self-congruity, and intentions to visit and satisfaction with a visit. The results indicate that where tourists can make an association between a destination and a destination brand personality, and where this association is consistent with their desired holiday experience, a high level of congruity will exist between the tourists' self-image and their perceptions of the destination. In turn this self-congruity was related to satisfaction with a visit to the destination but not to intention to travel to the destination.

Using Brand Personality to Differentiate Regional Tourism Destinations

Destination branding is growing rapidly as an approach to tourism destination promotion. While this concept has been borrowed from the world of general consumer goods and applied in a number of national tourism destinations, academic analysis of the value and effectiveness of destination branding has emerged more slowly. The present article addresses this paucity of academic scrutiny by examining the value of the destination brand personality construct in distinguishing between two regional tourism destinations. A survey of 480 tourists was conducted adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef in Northern Australia to gather data about the destination image attributes of two regional destinations that were branded by a state destination marketing organization. The results indicated that tourists were able to articulate different destination brand personalities for each region. The results also indicated that more work might need to be done to adapt existing frameworks of brand personality to the tourism context.