Abstract
Brand equity is a well-known concept within the marketing sciences. It refers to a product’s value from the return generated from a firm’s marketing strategy. The concept is not easy to apply to a destination as the destination ‘firm’ is a mix of various stakeholders including residents who offer their space to tourists without remuneration. In this article, the history of destination image studies is traced to its eventual evolution into destination branding. The concept of destination brand equity is then discussed as more than a simple return to a destination’s marketing strategy. The case is made that destination brand equity is integrally tied to sustainability. The article offers a model and corresponding equations to measure destination sustainability arguing that brand equity measurement is one and the same process. Owing to the unique characteristics of a destination the two concepts converge.
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1(PhD) is a Professor in the Applied Economics Department at the University of Minnesota . His research interests include branding, image, economic impact and tourism development. He has worked extensively in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa and holds visiting Professor positions at three international universities. He is a Fellow and past President of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and is currently serving as the Departmental Academic Advisor for the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
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Gartner, W. Brand equity in a tourism destination. Place Brand Public Dipl 10, 108–116 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2014.6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2014.6