The Structure of Destination Brands: Leveraging Values (Tourism Analysis, Special Issue on Destination Branding. 12, 2007) Dr.Juergen Gnoth Department of Marketing University of Otago PO Box 56 Dunedin New Zealand Ph: (+64)3-479 8446 Fax: (64)3-479 8172 e-mail: Juergen.Gnoth@ otago.ac.nz Abstract: This theoretical contribution details how a destination’s capital is comprised of the values and meanings as expressed in the cultural, social, natural, and economic dimensions of people’s lives. Unlike in product brands, these values and meanings form a living and constantly evolving relational system existing between people. On this basis, selection criteria for the functional, experiential, and symbolic dimensions of destination brands are developed. The final model is designed to link the performance of the brand to its capital so that brand development becomes an integral part of sustainable destination management that can be appreciated by tourism operators. The major threat to destination brands is the disregard of the effects of aggregation and time in the commoditization of destination values. Keywords: Destination, Brand, Place, Capital, Values, Time, Commoditization INTRODUCTION The recent uptake in destination branding as a special category of place branding (Kotler and Gertner 2002) by localities, regions and entire countries makes it opportune to contribute towards an appropriate theory that may help analyze and guide the management of branding processes. Brands are with us, if one likes it or not; they are a means by which many companies have created value for themselves and others. While communities and destinations may now also wish to exploit this commercial tool of asset creation, it needs to be considered that destination branding appears at odds with common branding practice; first, in most cases there is no clear
Transcript
The Structure of Destination Brands: Leveraging Values
(Tourism Analysis, Special Issue on Destination Branding. 12, 2007)
Dr.Juergen Gnoth
Department of Marketing
University of Otago
PO Box 56 Dunedin
New Zealand
Ph: (+64)3-479 8446
Fax: (64)3-479 8172
e-mail: Juergen.Gnoth@ otago.ac.nz
Abstract:
This theoretical contribution details how a destination’s capital is comprised of the
values and meanings as expressed in the cultural, social, natural, and economic
dimensions of people’s lives. Unlike in product brands, these values and meanings
form a living and constantly evolving relational system existing between people. On
this basis, selection criteria for the functional, experiential, and symbolic dimensions
of destination brands are developed. The final model is designed to link the
performance of the brand to its capital so that brand development becomes an integral
part of sustainable destination management that can be appreciated by tourism
operators. The major threat to destination brands is the disregard of the effects of
aggregation and time in the commoditization of destination values.
Keywords: Destination, Brand, Place, Capital, Values, Time, Commoditization
INTRODUCTION
The recent uptake in destination branding as a special category of place branding
(Kotler and Gertner 2002) by localities, regions and entire countries makes it
opportune to contribute towards an appropriate theory that may help analyze and
guide the management of branding processes. Brands are with us, if one likes it or
not; they are a means by which many companies have created value for themselves
and others. While communities and destinations may now also wish to exploit this
commercial tool of asset creation, it needs to be considered that destination branding
appears at odds with common branding practice; first, in most cases there is no clear
or obvious owner but there are a number of stakeholders involved who, living at the
place, would inevitably be ‘branded’ as well. Second, the question arises as to what it
actually is that is branded? In product marketing, it is the company’s economic capital
that is branded but how does that fit with the role of place, people, culture, social life
and nature as the assets tourists are attracted and served by? The present study
therefore focuses on qualifying the nature and structure of destination brands and its
attributes. It is argued that place branding involves not just the traditional economic
capital of manufacturing and services providers to create the tourism product. The
destination’s cultural, social and natural values which are converted into assets for
commercial exchange require due appreciation and selection processes that prevent
them from losing their meaning through commoditization and thus their value-in-use
(Vargo and Lusch, 2002) for both, hosts and guests (Smith, 1977).
Place brands exist to support and portray a place’s culture. They impact its foreign
policy, help attract and manage investment, influence export regulations and brands,
and how the place deals with tourism (Anholt 2003). The focus here is on destination
branding as a special case of place branding. The study defines, identifies and
develops selection criteria for destination characteristics that must be applied when
developing the brand.
Unlike in many tourism marketing texts, it will be argued that the managerial focus of
a destination brand are not the tourism icons of beautiful landscapes, buildings or
institutions such as museums or galleries, festivals and cultural events, but rather that
this type of branding is all about the values owned and created by the destination’s
people. These relate back to the meaning that forms the core of their lives, their pride,
community, and cultural identity. When turning these values into commercial assets it
creates the danger of alienating their owners from their own identity. Rather than
creating value for the destination, branding can easily destroy the very assets it tries to
leverage. The present study therefore identifies the substantive elements that structure
the destination’s capital and the selection criteria that need to be applied in order to
successfully reflect the destination in its brand.
After a short overview of branding in the context of destinations, the first concept to
be discussed is ‘place’, less as a spatial but as a social and cultural construct, that is,
as the interaction of people within physical space that they make their home and
within which social networks and culture evolve. Second, we describe how a place is
comprised of economic, natural, cultural and social values and how this is
transformed into capital on which the promises of the brand must be based.
Accordingly, place and destination brands encompass economic, natural, cultural and
social dimensions. The resulting model establishes theoretical foundations for the
brand’s long-term sustainability that is linked to the appreciation and circumspect
management of its total capital base. It thereby likes to provide a form of incentive
(Stronza 2001) that signals to operators how brands can be applied to create
sustainable value for both tourists and the destination.
In short, the model summarized in Fig. 1 proposes that the branding process needs to
identify the destination’s cultural, social, natural and economic capital as a set of
relational and living values. Values form a system and become ‘live’ in the interaction
of the destination’s people; they are relational rather than residing in individuals, and
form the core of what describes the uniqueness of the place. Destination managers
always have to be selective when choosing the attributes for their brands as they
require to be competitively positioned and easily identified. In order to express the
values of the destination ‘in short-hand’, as it were, yet without losing any of their
relational uniqueness and ‘live’ character, the selected values need to be essential,
comprehensive, truthful and robust. As the next step, these values need to be
interpreted for the destination and expressed at every level of the brand (functional,
experiential and symbolic) so that they create a full and favorable impact at every
level of tourists’ destination experiences (see Gnoth, 2002).
Destination
Capital
Cultural
Natural
Social
Economic
Value
SystemValue
Choice
Criteria
Essential
Comprehensive
Truthful (living)
Robust
Destination
Brand
Architecture
Symbolic
Experiential
Functional
Tourism
Experience
Symbolic
Experiential
Functional
Relational
Live
Systemic
Fig. 1 Destination Brand Value Resources, Selection and Experience
Generative Impacts & Exchanges not covered by the brand
Branding
Branding a destination means offering place values for tourist consumption.
Generically, a brand is a sign, name or logo used to differentiate one product from the
next. The term ‘brand’ is taken from the age-old practice of indicating ownership or
origin by burning or stamping signs onto material, be they wood or clay, or even onto
living beings, such as people (slaves) or cattle. Branding is a particular form of
naming products and services through a sign such as a word or a symbol. The latter
are then often associated with human characteristics in order to give products a
particular personality (Aaker 1997). In other words, while designed especially for
economic purposes, the common understanding of a brand is that it represents
characteristics and qualities which, as a promise to consumers, form the base of the
brand’s reputation (Herbig and Milewicz 1995).
As in product markets, a destination brand may heighten chances for competitive
success. However, a brand refers less to the shape and form of a product but rather to
what the product stands for in terms of what it promises and what its qualities and
characteristics are. This subtle shift in focus from the tangible to the intangible makes
it possible for the owner of the brand to a) improve the product over time, and even its
shape, form or function without having to completely re-establish him/herself as
producer of good quality; and b), leverage the reputation to produce other, new
products. The shape of a destination brand is more like a corporate or umbrella brand
rather than a product brand so that the destination brand suggests that individual
operators’ brands have certain qualities, characteristics or attributes.
This latter function is often referred to as brand-extension and is of importance
regarding the many services available at the destination as it builds on what has
become known as the “halo effect” (Han 1989) in the country of origin literature (e.g.
(Papadopoulos 2002). This effect states that, when confronted with a new product and
in the absence of any experience or cues of quality, consumers transfer their country
image to the product. Tourism operators as well as manufacturers of products can
benefit from the destination brand’s image in a similar way as tourists’ associate their
overall brand image with service brands that have not been experienced yet (Gnoth
2002). How well this association works in terms of its cognitive and affective effects
is a matter of ‘fit’, that is, how easily the attributes of one brand can be transferred to
another, how much they complement each other and the extent to which they
substitute each other (Mao and Krishnan 2006; Park, Milberg, and Lawson 1991). The
relationship these brands then take up amongst each other is called their brand
architecture. Product branders have developed a number of models and strategies
representing constellations of brands to each other and the leveraging effect this may
have for companies and in consumers’ minds (Aaker and Joachimsthaler 2000; Aaker
and Keller 1990). Here we will make use of these constructs in terms of the
relationships between a destination and its services brands, and how the destination
brand can be strengthened through such relationships.
Brand Levels
According to Gnoth (2002), destination brands work similarly to product brands as
short-cuts in tourists’ decision-making processes as they function as complex super-
symbols that contain images, affect and evaluations. Brands represent the benefits of
services tourists are promised to receive. Services are experienced at three levels of
abstraction, the functional, the experiential, and the symbolic levels. The functional or
utilitarian level relates simply to the objectively measurable experience of a
destination service. It is the lowest level of a promise and often the easiest to deliver.
In other words, to indicate how a destination may satisfy basic needs (e.g., food,
shelter), visual proof of hotel rooms or dining facilities with descriptions of what is on
offer may very well suffice. At the experiential level, brand values and
communications need to appeal to the tourists’ senses. Related descriptions are
therefore often full of affect and stimulate tourists’ memory and fantasy. While some
of them may create reproducible impressions the tourist had previous experience with
(e.g., “the water temperature is usually a balmy 20 degrees Celsius”), others may be
totally new requiring the tourist to make inferences as to the quality of experiences
and levels of enjoyment ( e.g. “the kava drink is commonly used during festivities in
tropical Samoa. Unlike other socially acceptable drugs, it leaves you pleasantly
mellow but without any nasty side-effects”). It is precisely during these inferences
that the overall image of a brand begins to influence judgments. The ‘symbolic level’
of a destination brand is the most abstract or least tangible one (e.g., ‘feeling like on
top of the world’, ‘living like a native’, or ‘treated like a king’, ‘in charge of your
destiny’, etc.). The effectiveness of this level depends very much on the performance
and interpretation of the previous levels, and the fit of the overall brand architecture.
Consequently, a destination brand is here defined as a name, sign or symbol
representing the core values of the place offered for tourism consumption and
operating as a system at a functional, experiential and symbolic level. It
comprehensively captures the place’s essential and living values on the cultural,
social, natural and economic dimensions and utilizes it as the destination’s capital to
create a surplus. In order to elucidate principles of cohesiveness in a destination
brand it is beneficial to probe the construct of place, i.e., the physical or virtual
destination tourists’ desire.
The Construct of ‘Place’
Economists’ Views
Various disciplines interested in the concept of place use the dimensions of time and
space to structure and explain its evolution. Geographers (e.g. (Christaller 1972)
studied the meaning of place as the development of meeting and market spaces from
whence the marketing discipline takes its interest in determining and exploiting
strategic locations. Other geographers conceptualize the interaction between people
and space in terms of how industries evolve, for example, the flour mills on the shores
of the southern Great Lakes (USA), or the fish factories near natural sea harbors.
Unlike geographers, however, marketers primarily analyze places in terms of their
role in exchange processes. In this way, international marketers such as Chinkota and
Ronkainen learn from Garreau (Garreau 1981) and Delamaide (Delamaide 1994) who
divide North America and Europe respectively into zones based on economic
activities and cultural outlooks, rather than learning from traditional geographers
utilizing national boundaries or other ‘accurate’ frames of reference (Czinkota and
Ronkkainen 1998). The examples demonstrate the versatility of the meaning of place.
Architects and Urban Planners
Unlike economists who discern flows of goods through space, or politicians who
discern places in terms of national boundaries, a particularly strong influence on the
perception of place and the creation of place branding efforts has come from
architects who put a strong emphasis on physical space. City and landscape designers
have focused on physical features of places in terms of landmarks such as
skyscrapers, bridges, shopping malls etc. that may differentiate geographical space
(Fitzsimons 1995). Yet, to all extent and purposes, it is not the physical structure per
se which creates the place but the meaning attached to its perception. Cities thus use
their landmarks to portray a certain image of culture, wealth, or artistry, and to attract
interest, and investment.
Recreation Studies
Arguably, however, nowhere else has the study of places gained more prominence
than in the geography and tourism related area of recreation studies (McCool,
Stankey, and Clark 1984; Schreyer, Jacob, and White 1981). In the latter discipline,
places were analyzed according to the features of attractions, with a view of designing
similar places elsewhere, and of their functionality, to manage visitor flows. In line
with general trends in consumer behavior research (Holbrook 1986) the phenomenon
of place has also received interest amongst recreation researchers who emphasize the
emotional relationship people form with a place. Emotional experiences are steeped in
the symbolic interaction with a place forming a core experience of recreation
(Shamari 1991). The strong emphasis of this effect on personal perception is
highlighted by (Beeson, Stewart, and Stokowski 1996) who found that a place can be
perceived as having a personality, and even different personalities both within and
across individuals (see (Walsh 2000) for a literature review). These findings and
conclusions link up with the consumption of brands as relational (Fournier 1998),
emotional and symbolic constructs (Hirschman 1980). They highlight the fact that
brands gain their value at the experiential and symbolic levels. The functional quality
of the destination experience is therefore an unconditional pre-requisite that needs the
fulfillment of norms and standards (Gnoth 1994). For example, the beach is the
operational foundation on which the place brand ‘Cote d’Azur’ in France is resting;
but it is the context of its physical environment and the symbolic meanings attached to
it that makes it quite unique and difficult to replicate.
Anthropological Approaches
In contrast to recreation researchers, anthropologists have probed deeper into the
social and generative aspects of place (Appadurai 1996; Gupta and Ferguson 1997;
Hirsch and O'Hanlon 1995). Rather than emphasizing any physical aspects or
characteristics of a landscape, the experience of place is seen in agents’ perception of
a space and, particularly, the processes that create this perception. They involve both
how people interact with their landscapes (farming, buildings, infrastructure) as well
as how they interact with their neighbors (e.g. through trade, sharing resources, or
even war). Within the construct of place, Appadurai (1996) distinguishes between
locality and neighborhood, emphasizing its social character. Accordingly, a locality is,
“relational and contextual rather than … scalar or spatial. [It has
] … a complex phenomenological quality, constituted by a series
of links between the sense of social immediacy, the technologies
of interactivity, and the relativity of contexts … In contrast
[Appadurai uses] the term neighborhood to refer to the actually
existing local forms in which locality, as a dimension or value, is
variably realized. Neighborhoods, in this usage, are situated
communities characterized by their actuality, whether spatial or
virtual, and their potential for social reproduction” (1996: 178-9).
Place is a socially constructed artifact which evolves as its people develop and
interact with it physically, emotionally and culturally. The landscaping, buildings,
streets and parks one may find are all manifestations of its meaning. A place assumes
an identity through the particular interactions citizens have with the environment and
each other. It designates ‘place’ as a system, and as a subsystem, that is, a place
amongst other places (neighborhoods, regions, etc.). City squares thus become
meeting or market places, junctions become frequently passed landmarks, or hillsides
become desirable areas to live in, for their dominating views or the prestige elevated
places often carry.
As the substance of autopoiesis (Luhmann, 1995) or creative re-inventions that occur
in social reproduction, such uses and interpretations and their repetitions in
conversations and (inter)actions both form and represent the meaning of place. While
all destinations may have similar elements (squares, theatres, parks etc.) it is how
these are assembled, used and interpreted that make up their experiential and
symbolic uniqueness.
A View for Tourism
The previous paragraphs emphasize that the meaning of place is, in the usage of
researchers, marketers, politicians and other users of places, an entirely constructed
concept. The construction of place is an essential element in the formation of self and
identity (Belk 1988), of individuals, communities, cultures and nations (Appadurai,
1996). It appears therefore as a natural development that, similar to the concept of
brand personality in product marketing, the concept of destination personality is
emerging in the tourism literature (Hosany, Ekinci and Uysal, 2007).
The previous elaborations also indicate that a destination’s personality or identity
grows over a period of time and is, as an open system, a precariously ephemeral
entity, as natural catastrophes, wars, and famine can eradicate place like forgetting or
death does for people. Hardly anywhere else appears this ephemeral nature of place
more obvious than in the rise and fall of tourism destinations (Butler 1980) which
gain their attraction through the meaning people attach to them (Plog, 2001; (Mo,
Howard, and Havitz 1993). When this meaning begins to fade, that is, the destination
loses its original attraction it may well be seen as losing its personality understood as
a systemic agglomeration of characteristics or traits. For the destination brand, it
means that its success depends on the depth of meanings attached and the types of
schemata these evoke in tourists’ expectations and decisions. Schemata comprise the
number and qualities of semantic links that exist in conjunction with other concepts,
or simply, in the way tourists view the entire brand architecture, including how
seminal, and how relevant the evoked meaning is at any given time in decision
processes. Whatever tourists believe a brand to be influences their decision to travel.
Based on these beliefs, the visitation and interaction with the destination causes
further changes in the place over and above the creation of tourism plant. On the one
hand, therefore, branding can have additional physical, social and economic impacts.
On the other, the same reasons that lead to the success of the brand may create
unwanted impacts causing unexpected changes in the fabric of the place. If utilized as
an incentive for managing its capital more circumspect and efficiently, place branding
may be utilized for creating additional value and unexpected consequences may be
contained.
In conclusion, by their very nature, places are more complex than manufactured
products. Places represent open, ecological systems of interacting organic and
inorganic, sentient and non-sentient entities, generating socio-cultural and physical
processes and outcomes. Physical impacts aside, the social systems that create the
place also have political and economic dimensions. These pose as interacting
subsystems creating dynamics that make the place evolve. In contrast to the closed
systems of manufactured products, places are historically grown geographical or
virtual spaces evolving through interactions of people within an environment.
Tourism has systemic impacts as it influences the evolution of a place
disproportionately the greater the cultural differences between hosts and guests.
Products are normally treated as closed systems. Their unity is maintained by their
manufactured, static condition of shape, size, weight and mechanical features that
render their services whenever they are being used (Vargo and Lusch 2004). The
unity of place is maintained through the adherence to a unity of time and space,
including virtual space. The utility of place is expressed and experienced in relational
processes of interaction of people, and of people and places, and the meaning this
interaction creates. These connotations are used as the source for the (living) brand
values that brand managers can choose from to characterize and identify the
destination. In this context, ‘lived’ place brand values could be considered as much
more powerful than enshrined values as they can be experienced directly.
For example, in order to appreciate historical meanings and contexts attached to a
place one requires more than just the tourists’ ‘gaze’, but interest, understanding and
knowledge that help tourists access that meaning. In contrast, lived values create
access to a place affectively rather than (only) cognitively. Values that are ‘lived’ are
relevant; they make a difference in how people think and act. If a place feature is
merely historically important and where history bears little relevance to contemporary
life, it is difficult to turn the feature into a place brand value; in such cases, one
requires at least some powerful physical evidence to create and manifest an attraction
(e.g., temples of the Aztec culture). In all other cases education, interest and
understanding is needed (e.g., when viewing the bones of Neanderthals in a museum).
Living and experiencing values actualizes the self-referential system of culture and is
thus a precondition of its reproduction (Luhmann, 1995). In contrast to product
brands, destination brands are open systems and need to be treated and managed as
‘ongoing projects’ in which the values are being monitored for their continuing
relevance and truth. They evolve and develop over time and are constantly influenced
and changed, even by the visitors who they attract. They therefore need some form of
management in order to remain part of the destination’s capital for tourism
production.
Destination Values
Place characteristics represent the values by which destinations are perceived,
compared and judged. All, tourists, tourism providers, as well as the wider community
whose place is visited look for and require benefits or ‘value’ in terms of ‘what they
get for what they give’, including the satisfaction the exchange generates. But what is
it that is produced and exchanged that satisfies tourists? How is it generated, and who
or what decides that it can be traded? How can such values turn into capital, that is,
assets with which further assets can be created? This discussion is important in any
theory and discussion of destination branding as what is being traded will influence
how brands are developed and, in turn, how this development influences the physical,
cultural and social spheres of the destination.
‘Value’ has been defined in three major areas of social sciences: in philosophy,
sociology (including cultural studies and socio-psychology) and political economy, or
economics as it now known. The modern use of the term ‘value’ appears to be often
based on economic theory. It distinguishes between value-in-use and value-in-
exchange. The first relates to the amount of labor directly or indirectly contained in a
commodity, while the latter relates to what it can be exchanged for, i.e., its value in
the marketplace. Philosophy and sociology frame the term value differently and will
be dealt with further below. Personal and social values correspond to aspirations and
beliefs in goals (e.g. Rokeach, 1973). They are intertwined with aesthetic convictions
of what is good, beautiful or sublime. Intuitively, place brands look here for
inspiration to position tourism brands, and then turn these values that are part of the
perceived identity into values on offer for consumption.
In any case, over the last few decades efforts have been made to transcend these
conceptual distinctions between the different types of values via a ‘theory of practice’
(Bourdieu 1977). This development has lent emphasis to the concept of cultural
(Guillory 1993) and social capital (Ostrom and Ahn 2003; Putnam 2002) and the role
‘time’ plays in the commercialization of value-in-use (Postone 1993). To this we will
further add the concept of natural capital to account for nature-based tourism
attractions,- although it might be thought of cutting across other types of capital as
nature is a social construct (Greider and Garkovicz 1994). All four types of capital,
economic, cultural, social, and natural, are employed to attract tourists and extract
value-in-exchange which, in the first place, often means tourism dollars. However,
and following (Bourdieu and Passerone 1990) capital can also involve values that are
enjoyed through social exchange processes between hosts and guests (Smith 1977),
and through increasing cultural understanding (see e.g. (D'Amore 1987).
Marx’s Concept of Value
One of the most developed discussions on economic value can be found in Das
Kapital by Karl Marx. In his work, Marx distinguishes between value-in-use and
value-in-exchange. Value-in-use commonly relates to a worker’s labor and the value
that this labor produces for the laborer. In contrast, value-in-exchange is the value of
labor realized in an exchange. For the producer of labor, this is commonly expressed
through wages. For the manager or plant-owner, a product’s or service’s value-in-
exchange is whatever he can realize in the market place. Entrepreneurial interest is
awakened when a surplus can be generated from between what it costs to produce a
product and for what it can be sold. Similarly, a destination’s values-in-use as
constituting elements of its identity are turned into commodities by tourism operators
and tourists alike.
Sociological Values
In contrast to political economy, sociologists define values usually as ‘guiding
principles in life’ (see e.g. (Rokeach 1973) In other words, people aspire to live (up
to) values. They pursue certain activities or behave in certain ways so as to obtain the
benefits of the value either in the form of a state of mind or feeling (e.g. feeling
excited), or as represented by possessions (status symbols) or in behavior shown by
others (e.g. being liked or esteemed by others). Furthermore, there is the distinction
between a desired value, i.e., the value that is lived and experienced, and the desirable
value, i.e., the value that one aspires to live up to as an ideal goal. In either case,
tourists travel to satisfy these values.
Recently, in the field of micro-economics, and in marketing in particular, experiences
as symbolic products are being recognized as economic goods for their affective
value-in-use (Holbrook, 1986). While popular tourism marketing literature now
recognizes the experience as focal generator and expression of value (see e.g, (Pine II
and Gilmore 1998 ), which part of the experience is the one actually paid for by the
tourist and which one is ‘for free’ is difficult to ascertain as the tourist’s perception of
the experience is outside of the seller’s control.
This apparent inability of managers to control what the tourist actually experiences or
consumes highlights both the proximity and difference between economic, personal
and social values. With Bourdieu, the satisfaction of both the commercial interest of
operators and of tourists’ aspirations creates further value for both. For the operator,
the commercial gain leads to the creation of further assets, be they commercial or
cultural or social (e.g., better service facilities or money for private education,
donations to charities etc.). For the tourist, the outcome of the exchange may be
education and recreation that feeds back into tourists’ productivity at home. Those
influences that are out the control of managers and not contained in the brand are here
considered as generative influences and are a major reason for the evolution of both
place and brand (see Fig.1).
Aesthetic Values
Cultural, social and personal values are intertwined with aesthetic values. They are of
interest here as they form the source of both what drives life at destinations and what
makes tourists choose one destination over others. They form also the content of the
symbolic level a brand likes to nurture as it drives the perception and evaluation of the
sensory or experiential level.
Aesthetics is a central construct in understanding the tourism experience. In
philosophy it is traditionally considered as a contemplative, disinterested sub-
discipline. It refers to the experience of sensory stimuli and is related to, or expressed
by the arts as creating different mind-states, even of the spiritual or philosophical
kind. Thus, Picasso’s Guernica, the elaborate decorations of the Alhambra mosque, or
classical Indian music and dance all aim at elevating and/or transforming the viewer’s
state of mind.
According to Kant’s arguments in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (Kritik der
Urteilskraft, 1790), there exists a difference between feeling pleasure and feeling
enjoyment. To discern value and judge something as being ‘good’ ‘agreeable’,
‘beautiful’, or ‘sublime’, it is necessary for the onlooker to be capable of
contemplative judgment, i.e. the ability to ‘step back’ as it were, in one’s mind, and
feel how the work of art creates the experience of pleasure. Thus, experiences form
the core of the tourism brand in that they make it accessible (Pine II and Gilmore
1998 ). The commercial value of experiences is encapsulated in the notion of
atmospherics (Kotler 1973-74), which relates to their utility and production, and has
put the focus onto experiential consumption, mood (Gardner 1985) and emotions in
research and practice (Gnoth 1998; Hirschman 1982). As Kant argues, the true
enjoyment of these experiences, however, comes about through the (aesthetic)
contemplation of the pleasure involved. The true value-in-use for the tourist, then, is
the outcome of enjoyment. Although pleasure is often an end in itself, for the
aesthetics, experiences are often merely the vehicle that create enjoyment as outcome.
The aesthetic consumption of landscapes, cultural festivities, the arts or even thrilling
activities such as sky-diving have high value-in-use with many tourists, if not for their
education then at least for their exciting and /or recreational effects. Through tourists’
active participation in exchange processes tourism consumption is therefore also an
act of production as it can generate not only a restored labor force but also a more
informed or educated force whose refreshed body and mind and incremental learning
feeds back added value to other economic, social and cultural production processes.
Time and Value
The fundamental issue transcending any differences between products and services
both from a consumer’s and marketer’s point of view is that of time. Only through
time, i.e. the process of using a product or service, can value be realized (Postone,
1993). The construct of time is therefore central in both understanding value-in-use
and value-in-exchange. Considering all of the productive elements, that is, the capital
(plant), the labor (worker/ service deliverer), and the consumer’s co-productive efforts
necessary to produce a service, value-in-use relates to value-generating processes in
time. In contrast, value-in-exchange for producers represents the aggregate form of
four elements. First, the tourism staff’s value-in-use of his/her inputs and outputs;
second, the use (utility) that the (co)product(ion) of service deliverer and customer
might provide; third, the compensation for the marketer’s effort, and fourth, the
surplus it generates. All of these elements are usually aggregated in time and
expressed in the price of a holiday.
But the price one pays often neither considers all costs of production nor all the
benefits consumption, including visitation and interaction creates (expressed as
generative impacts in Fig.1). It is a feature that economists often refer to as
externalities. The ticket to enter and enjoy a stage production at a destination
compensates for the means of production only in part. Especially the common pool
goods (Hardin 1968) that are needed and relied on to generate the destination’s
capacity to create and stage such a production (incl. schooling, infrastructure, cultural
and social capacities such as justice and conventions etc.), while rarely acknowledged
or accounted for, are abstracted in the price of a ticket. Similarly, operators attracting
tourists to a destination’s cultural sights, or to ‘happenings’ in public places that are
enjoyed for their perceived atmosphere, are abstracting from the temporal dimension
of culture and social life as historic processes while offering them in advertisements
for consumption. Once these attractions represent brand values they are being
commoditized, that is, they become tradable and are in danger of loosing their
meaning by being alienated from their carriers, the host population. Commoditization
in tourism (King and Stewart 1996; Hughes 2006) is therefore often seen to include
the destruction of the values the product originally contained: when they become
estranged from their context, they have lost a vital part of their function. This is the
most serious threat to a destination brand and can only be overcome by aiming at
responsible and sustainable tourism development.
In conclusion, time is the vital ingredient in understanding the generation of capital,
and the commoditization and (de)valuation of brand values that are designed by
destination managers to satisfy tourists’ personal, social, and aesthetic values.
Economic capital comprises all those assets that can be used to create further assets.
The foregone elaborations have shown that a destination’s natural, cultural and social
assets can become an attraction to tourists and therefore a form of capital that is
exploited by tourism operators and consenting communities alike.
Values as Capital
Values have been detailed as inherent qualities in what we do, how we do it and why,
including what we get for it in exchange. While there is an economic side to any form
of capital that tourism feeds off, brands can endanger a destination’s cultural, social
and natural capital through inappropriate commoditization but it can also help protect
it by building incentives (Stronza, 2001) for operators to learn and understand what a
volatile object it is they are dealing with when offering destination values for
consumption.
Social capital relates to a community’s or society’s capacity to work together
(Putnam, 2000). The OECD defines it as “…networks, together with shared norms,
values and understandings which facilitate cooperation within or among groups”
(OECD 2007) and thereby brings social network theory (Granovetter 1973) and
political science into play as some of the major tools of inquiry and substantiation of
social capital (Ostrom and Ahn, 2003). Such capital is at the heart of both the quality
of cooperation between tourism service providers at destinations as much as it is at the
heart of tourists’ destination experiences.
Cultural capital has become an increasingly used and debated concept. While
originally developed in the educational field as it relates to knowledge and its social
recreation in classrooms and families (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990; Guillory, 1993),
such capital can be translated into cultural resources such as power and status (Bowles
and Jensen, 2007). Intuitively, the existence of cultural capital may be clear to tourism
researchers. However, there are problems involved in its conceptualisation, not the
least when trying to specify the pressure ‘culture’ comes under when tourism begins
to influence its value structure. A further difficulty lies with its measurement as
everything is embedded in culture, even the concept of nature and landscape (Greiner
and Garkovicz, 1994). Culture is thus a medium without which social interaction and
communication would be inconceivable. Nevertheless, its importance to both
destinations and tourists cannot be denied and should therefore be expressly
acknowledged in a tourism destination brand. Indeed, it is precisely the quality of care
and circumspection with which tourism managers develop brands that they
demonstrate how genuine they are in managing the common-pool goods sustainably.
We have thus identified the value dimensions of importance for destination brands as
a subgroup of place brands. These values are relational constructs and elements that
function as a living system of meaning between the destination’s people. It is the
particular configuration of these elements that create the destination’s uniqueness and
thus its capital. Although the discussion of the nature of capital is still continuing in
economics, we have demonstrated that the social, cultural and natural assets of a
destination all form part of the process of value creation in tourists’ experiences and
surplus for tour operators. As a public good, these values turned assets need the
inclusion and consideration of all stakeholders in destination branding processes.
Thereafter they require careful selection in cooperation with stakeholders so that the
brand is not becoming a means by which these values are trivialized and possibly
destroyed (Ben-Amos 1977; Williams 2007).
Brand Value Selection Criteria
It is into the cultural, social and natural environment of destinations that tourists are
invited to by tourism operators to share its features and meaning for profit. Through
this interaction, place features can obtain new meanings for its inhabitants created
and/or intensified through tourism (see e.g., (Mowforth and Munt 1998). Place
branders therefore need to consider, first, that the meaning of a place and hence its
brand is socially constructed and subject to social process and change. Secondly, that
meaning can also be affected by how outsiders not residing permanently in the place
may interpret the place. In this way, religious festivals have been turned into
commercially driven and exploited spectacles (e.g., the various Carnevals in
Germany, Italy or Brazil), and cultural artifacts have been stripped of their original
meaning and richness through interactions with tourists (Greenwood 1977). Processes
of commoditization like these generate a loss of meaning and the alienation of people
from their cultural symbols, including damage to the destination brand as a publicly
owned asset.
Whenever tourism is of such a scale that the place grows physically we must expect
changes in its meaning. Changes in the destination’s physical character often
represent changes in the spectra, predominance and use of its social and cultural
symbols as any mass-tourism destination can verify. Likewise, if the extent and
quality of interaction between inhabitants, environment and tourists changes towards
visitor-dominant influences, the values of the place as originally perceived by both
locals and tourists may also change (Butler, 1980). As a matter of cause,
developments of this nature affect the stability and long-term prospects of a place
brand. While brand values and messages may thus be credible, deliverable,
differentiating, convey powerful ideas, enthuse stakeholders and partners and
resonate with the tourist (Morgan, Pritchard, and Pride 2004), their long-term
marketing success will be depend on its messengers (the locals and their changing
environment). If the destination’s people do not represent nor share these values any
longer in the course of their daily lives and in the interactions of ‘place’, marketing
will fail.
As a consequence, marketers first need to learn and understand the pool of relational
and living values that form the destination’s capital before they develop their own
prototypical or exemplary brand extensions (Mao and Krishnan, 2006). When viewing
the creation of destination brands in the context of destination development (Butler,
1980), emerging tourism businesses often portray many of their brand values at an
early stage, albeit pre-consciously. With the active choice of becoming a tourism
destination, however, these values need to be made conscious and transparent in the
interest of the individual business and destination. Otherwise, they cannot be
operationalized and become part of the tourism service delivery and training system.
Any further developments of these operationalizations,- as they naturally occur over
time, including with newly establishing businesses, changes in the local population,
mass tourism etc., their relevance and effectiveness need to be continuously tested in
terms of their fit with the place and its values.
For selecting relevant values comprising a destination brand, the first and most central
quality these brand values need to possess is that they are essential, in other words,
they need to characterize the core features of the destination value spheres (natural,
cultural, social, economic). Say, for example, such a value is ‘ruggedness’ by which
many landscape features in New Zealand may be described. This feature may also be
discerned in the cultural fabric of the land, be it in the earthiness of much of New
Zealand’s fresh food, the style New Zealanders build their houses, or how they solve
technical problems. In social interaction, ‘ruggedness’ may mean the quiet, somewhat
awkward but heartfelt style with which people interact, be they Pakeha or Maori, or in
the egalitarian if not astoundingly personal manner tourism services are delivered.
The former are examples of a value permeating the cultural and social spheres while
the latter represents a part of New Zealand’s economic capital in terms of a typical
attribute of its service technology. Each example of ‘ruggedness’ also has a
functional, experiential and symbolic meaning. One could find this characteristic
consistently throughout the country even in the somewhat rugged elegance of New
Zealand’s major city, Auckland, which aspires to be a city of global importance and
flair. Brand values need to reflect the essence of the place.
Second, the nature of building a ‘place’ as previously defined includes the
successfully creation of a reputation. This requires consistency over time (see also
Herbig, 1995 ). It means that the values found to make up ‘place’ are consistently
reproduced in many parts of its system, and creatively reinvented in new products,
services and situations. The maintenance of consistency becomes difficult when the
inhabitants and newcomers are faced with rapid change or an overload of new
influences. ‘Place-meaning’ is in flux when people have little experience nor time to
internalize this meaning, that is, experience and adapt to the special place values. This
can also be the case when newcomers (residents as well as tourists) are so numerous
that their (re)-interpretations of the place become normative by their sheer (physical,
economic, cultural or social) power of influence. Consistency thus means that
essential place values permeate the experience of the place identifiably without the
loss of ‘essentialness’ or centrality in their meaning over time.
Third, destination brand values also need to be comprehensive. While marketers of the
day may pick and choose the values they would like to leverage in terms of the fit
between their own and the destination’s brand, they need to make sure they make
their choice from a comprehensive list or a holistic understanding of the place.
Otherwise the marketer runs the risk of not understanding the mechanics of the
place’s system and how everything fits together to create its uniqueness. As a
consequence, for example, many natural resources have been eroded and social and
cultural systems disturbed throughout the world.
The loss of substance in the various dimensions of a destination’s capital points to the
loss of relevance of promoted values. To be relevant requires those brand values to be
lived values or truthful in the sense that they can actually be found in the fabric of the
destination, rather than being enshrined or simply made up, as often experienced with
product brands.
The last but not least criterion for choosing values for a brand must be that they are
robust. By that we mean that the essential values are discernible and verifiable from
any motivational angle that a tourist might approach a destination and its brand from.
This selection criterion highlights the importance of market segmentation. Otherwise,
trying to ‘be everything to everyone’ creates weak brands with weak attributes. First
scientifically reported attempts of identifying and establishing place characteristics for
brands as this Special Issue Volume of Tourism Analysis demonstrates, often take a
market-driven approach which assumes that contemporary stakeholders are a) capable
of discerning all relevant dimensions and b) are weighting them appropriately. While
our skills in segmenting markets are improving (Bloom 2005) if relevant questions are
not being asked as part of the methodology used for brand-creation, they can neither
be answered nor their importance weighted. More importantly, if brand values are not
seen in the context of how they are derived, that is, that they are socially and
culturally constructed perceptions of the interactions of place features, neither their
role nor their weight may be assessed appropriately. One suspects that the cultural
dimension is the least prominent in branding processes as everyone involved appears
to be immersed in the same paradigm. In any case, when branding a place one has to
decide whether it is the market or the ‘place’ that is more important and whether one
would want to risk the erosion of its values by trusting research results that do not
refer to all dimensions of destination capital in their rational foundation (see Fig. 1).
Destination branding involves four reiterative steps:
1. IDENTIFICATION: the core, living values of the destination need to be
captured in terms of the four capital dimensions (natural, social, cultural and
economic).
2. CHOICE:
- at a destination level, the brand system needs to comprise a set of
essential, comprehensive, truthful and robust values that position it
competitively (see Morgan et al. 2004)
- at the firm level, the house brand needs to be cognizant of the destination
brand value system. For leverage, it needs to position itself so that its total
set of own and shared values is essential, comprehensive, truthful and
robust
3. OPERATIONALIZATION: destination and firms need to identify how, where
and when tourists experience these chosen values so they can be monitored
and managed for sustainability. They are to be defined for both, at each of the
three brand levels (functional, experiential and symbolic), and for each capital
dimension (natural, social, cultural and economic).
4. EXPERIENCE/ EVALUATION: tourists’ experiences and satisfaction need to
be monitored, in particular regarding service quality and the fit between
experience attributes and brand values. Results will give insights into the
perception and condition of the destination’s capital including the impact its
values have on the visitor experience. Note however, not all of the experience
and interactions between destination and tourist are covered by the brand as it
is, essentially, a distilled and opportunistic tool, positioned to honestly present
the destination at its best. The tourists’ impacts on each of the destination’s
capital dimensions as they occur seemingly at random, need to be monitored
over and above the performance of the brand.
Conclusions
Destinations are places where tourists desire to go to. Their attractions represent those
functional, experiential and symbolic values-in-use or benefits that are offered to be
consumed by tourists. In order to create a competitive advantage, more and more
destinations have begun to utilize branding as a tool first developed in product
marketing. This study has attempted to highlight the particular difficulties and dangers
involved in commoditizing a destination’s cultural, social and natural values. Rather
than dealing with a closed system like in product markets, destinations are open
systems that evolve as living entities.
The study has discussed how place branding can assist in utilizing and managing its
attractions to its advantage, both commercially and with the aim of sustainability. By
having developed a model that makes the value system that constitutes the place
central and transparent to a branding approach, and by systematically seeking to
reflect that system in the destination brand, tourism operators receive an incentive that
can benefit themselves as well as the destination in its development.
The open system of place, its historicity and evolving rather than managed or
manufactured reality explains the absence of clear owners of destination brands. By
linking the success of destination development to its capital base, tourism operators
and researchers have the opportunity of creating new approaches to effective
sustainable destination development. This is not easy, however, and we require
further case and empirical studies to gain a body of knowledge that reflects on results
with all dimensions of a destination’s capital in mind.
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