Tourism destination branding complexity

The paper proposes enhancing the understanding of the complex challenges inherent in the development of tourism destination brand slogans.

Prior to completing a tourism marketing PhD, the author spent almost two decades working in the tourism industry, mostly in destination marketing organisations (DMOs). In this paper he laments a significant gap in the literature in the area of tourism destination branding, a field that has only attracted academic attention since the late 1990s.

While interest in applications of brand theory to practise in tourism is increasing, there is a paucity of published research with which to guide DMOs. There has been relatively little discussion on the complexity involved in capturing the essence of a multi‐attributed destination with a succinct and focused brand position, in a way that is both meaningful to the multiplicity of target audiences of interest to stakeholders and effectively differentiates the destination from competitors.

The paper will be of interest to tourism practitioners with a vested interest in the marketing of their destination, as well as research students and supervising academics interested in destination marketing.

The paper summarises six issues that make the application of branding theory to destinations a complex undertaking, and which are worthy of increased research attention.