Analyzing destination branding and image from online sources: A web content mining approach

Abstract

Destination image, place brand, and branding continue to receive attention by researchers and industry. However, a thorough definition and differentiation of these terms and further investigation are still necessary. Digital information sources provide relevant image formation and branding agents and thus, potentially impact travelers' image and serve as platforms to communicate perceptions. With abundant online information on places available, the data offer insights into the brand identity communications and the image perceptions by travelers. This study presents an automated web content mining approach. A total set of 5719 documents inform the online destination representation in various online sources. Results demonstrate how to extract destination brand identity and image through web content mining.

Introduction

Over the last decades, place branding, place marketing and place/destination image receive attention by researchers and industry (Echtner and Ritchie, 1991, Gertner, 2011). Surprisingly, research remains inconclusive regarding the clear definition of destination brand, brand image, and branding as well as lacks theoretical conceptualization. Tasci and Kozak (2006, p. 299) note the “lack of clear definition of destination brand, the confusion between brand and image, the lack of conception of similarities and differences between branding from consumer products and tourist destinations.” Similarly, Gertner's meta-analysis (2011, p. 97) on place marketing and place branding concludes: “Out of the 212 articles analyzed, 122 were categorized as being about ‘place branding’ and 23 about ‘place image’. Several alluded to brand and image, almost as if they were similar or interchangeable concepts.” Gnoth (2002) contends, that a destination brand exhibits functional, experiential, and symbolic components.

Places are at the heart of tourism products. When planning a holiday, customers make multiple decisions involving the place, length of stay, travel party, travel mode (Fodness & Murray, 1999). As travel decisions are complex and risky, customers engage in extended information searches (Sirakaya & Woodside, 2005). Information sources include various stakeholders such as destination marketing organizations, hotels, sights, and transport. The internet is an important information source for travelers and influences decision making (Gursoy & McCleary, 2004). Online materials provide additional information including travelers' blogs that share their trip perceptions and news media reports on destinations. This content provides a repository of online sources communicating certain aspects of destinations and potentially influencing tourists.

The internet provides an abundance of information to learn about brand image representation and perception (Stepchenkova, Kirilenko, & Morrison, 2009). Prior studies tend to focus on one information source as repository for data analysis, but the internet offers different information sources. Some studies investigate online sources and destination image representation (Choi et al., 2007, Liang et al., 2009), but they do not use a text mining approach. Text mining allows simultaneous analyses of hundreds of blog entries. Recent research introduces advanced content analysis procedures to investigate a city's online representation (Liang et al., 2009). Most studies investigating destination online image do not take into consideration the diversity of available online sources or understand the internet as one homogenous communication source (Govers and Go, 2005, Stepchenkova et al., 2009). To address this shortcoming, the present study uses a web content mining approach to extract information from three digital image formation agents. This process collects marketing information available through the websites of destination marketing organizations (DMOs), user generated content from review pages and blogs, and editorial content of Anglo-American news media sites. This research contrasts findings identifying place branding efforts by evaluating projected place images and perceptions of travelers regarding the city break destination Vienna in Austria.