Consumer-based Brand Equity For Tourist Destinations Model Construction And Evaluation

With the competition among destinations getting more intensive in recent years, most tourism attractions tend to be the same apart from some natural and cultural endowments which can not be copied. In order to attract more tourists, tourism destinations have strengthened their promotions which result in a huge increase of tour information; But for tourists, their time for discriminating the product features and choosing goods become less and less with accelerated pace of life and increased work pressure, which brings contradiction between tourist information increase and tourists attention drop. Meanwhile, key motivating forces, including globalization, increased competition, commodification of services, power of intermediaries, sophisticated consumers, rising cost and divergence of media, have being challenging the destination promotion. Hence, branding has been introduced into tourism destinations as a useful marketing tool differentiating themselves from competitors and gaining competitive advantage. Brands and brand influence is becoming the core competitive asset, and tourism destination management has entered an era of strategic brand asset management from the traditional brand management.The increasing investment by DMOs in branding initiatives requires analyses of the performance of destination brand campaigns, and brand equity as a general brand performance indicator has been employed. A financial perspective evaluation is difficult to apply in tourism destinations due to a lack of statistics and commonality of tourism destination. At the same time, the evaluation from this perspective can not provide useful reference for destination branding practice, so scholars discuss the problem from the consumer perspective. Consumer-based brand equity views brand equity as brands’value to consumer and provides an alternative to the financial accounting perspective, which considers brand equity a balance sheet intangible asset. Now, more and more researchers attach importance to CBBE because it is focused on the sources of brand equity. The study builds tourism destination brand equity model, including dimensions of regional image, tourism destination brand awareness, tourism destination brand image, tourism destination perceived quality, tourism destination perceived value, tourism destination brand loyalty based on tourism destination features, the latest achievements in the field of brand equity research, and depth interviews conclusion, then develops the corresponding scales for all dimensions. By using exploratory factor analysis, the paper finds that perceived quality and perceived value have merged into a new dimension which is named perceived performance in the study, then we test the model which includes five dimensions empirically. The paper hopes to build brand equity evaluation model fit for tourism destination and to provide practical branding performance evaluation tool to DMO.Specifically, main conclusions of this paper are as follows:1.Consumer-based brand equity theory traditionally developed for product and service can be transferred to destinations, and tools from general marketing offer destination marketers a reliable and efficient way for tourism destination brand equity evaluation. However, the researchers should build the special model based on tourism destination features when applying brand equity to tourism destinations due to the complexity of the product and the synchronicity of production and consumption, then develop more targeted scales for all dimensions.2.Generation path of tourism destination brand equity is as follows:Construction of tourism destination brand identity—consumer’s contact with brand—consumer’s brand recognition—generation of brand equity, stakeholders internalizing the brand play an important role in the process. We propose that the premise of tourism destination brand equity is destination brand identity; the foundation of tourism destination brand equity is through tourists’ contact with the brand’the key of tourism destination brand equity is tourists’ recognition of brand; the guarantee of tourism destination brand equity is brand internalization with stakeholders.3.The value composition of consumer-based brand equity for a destination is multidimensional. As the study points out, it consists of regional image, tourism destination brand awareness, tourism destination brand image, tourism destination perceived performance, and tourism destination brand loyalty through the integration of depth interviews, theoretical review and empirical findings. The perceived performance is the special and most important dimension for tourism destination. The brand awareness is the foundation of the brand equity accumulation though it is not as important as perceived performance, because it has only a certain reputation, while a destination can be perceived and then be accepted by tourists.4.The dimensions of consumer-based brand equity for a destination are not parallel. There is a specific path relation according to the consumers’ cognitive logic. Regional image and tourism destination brand awareness are exogenous variables, and tourism destination brand image, tourism destination perceived performance, and tourism destination brand loyalty are endogenous variables. Regional image, tourism destination brand awareness, tourism destination brand image, tourism destination perceived performance all have direct or indirect impact on destination brand loyalty.Main innovations include the following:1.Building consumer-based brand equity multidimensional model for a destination, which includes regional image, tourism destination brand awareness, tourism destination brand image, tourism destination perceived performance, and tourism destination brand loyalty dimensions, with an aim to avoid sidedness of single brand image dimension in destination brand equity evaluation.2.Setting and testing path relationship and relationship strength of tourism destination brand equity, extracting "critical path" and "performance indicators" which influence tourism destination brand equity.3.Developing brand equity measurement scale based on existing research conclusion and tourism destination features to provide reliable and effective practical tools for destination brand equity evaluation and long-term performance evaluation.