Research PaperBrand architecture management: The case of four tourist destinations in Catalonia
Introduction
Tourist destinations are increasingly dedicated to developing and managing their brand in order to gain a strong differentiated position within a competitive market. To some extent, their whole marketing efforts are moving towards a branding-related perspective. This is mainly due to the fact that organisations, with the responsibility of attracting visitors, generally do not have (or have only a partial) control of all the tools of marketing, e.g., price of services and product development; although they could influence the image communicated to the market. The fact is that the general marketing concepts suitable for industrial goods and services, are difficult to apply to tourist destinations, which are composed and managed by a multitude of players from public and private sectors and include a variety of tourist products and services. The challenge for a tourism organisation is how to implement the appropriate governance model, defining public policies that mediate among the different and, sometimes, contradictory interests of private stakeholders, local population, environment protection, long term sustainability, etc. Moreover, the management of tourism brands is inevitably influenced by the administrative boundaries, as well as by the public policies and political interests that may change over time.
As more and more tourism organisations are focussing on branding, the literature has been directed towards the study of the branding concepts, such as the brand identity, equity, benefits and characteristics. Nevertheless, little research has been carried out to study tourism brand architecture (Dooley and Bowie, 2005, Harish, 2010). This is rather surprising, considering that the sector is composed of a multitude of private and public players, each of them promoting their own product brand, and that the territorial brands at local, regional and national level are necessarily overlapped and interrelated.
The aim of this research is to contribute to the understanding of the relationship among the different tourist brands, and how brand management is implemented in the case of Catalonia and its practical implications in the four tourist destinations selected as case studies. Thus, strategic relations among tourist brands and the brand architecture management will be analysed and described, through the definition of the roles and responsibilities of the different administrative levels, along with the challenges that tourist destinations are facing in the implementation of the theoretical background on brand architecture management.
Section snippets
Theoretical framework of brand management and brand architecture
According to Keller (2003), a brand helps consumers organise their knowledge about products and services. Currently, as highlighted by Simoes and Dibb (2001, p.217), ‘there is general agreement in the marketing literature that the brand is more than a name, given to a product; it embodies a whole set of physical and socio-psychological attributes and beliefs’. The fact is that still many tourism professionals identify the brand with its name, logo and slogan, while these elements are only the
Methodology
The research contributes to a better understanding of the challenges that tourist destinations are facing when they try to implement the theoretical background on brand architecture management. The research carried out is based on primary and secondary data gathered during the months from March to June 2011.
The primary data were collected through 12 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a panel of representatives of tourism marketing organisations from public and private sectors at
Current situation of tourist destination brands in Catalonia
In the case of Catalonia, in order to know how destinations are applying the concepts and methodologies of brand architecture, it is important to understand how the system of tourist destination management is working in practice.
Case studies
Fig. 9 shows the location of the four destinations chosen as case studies, highlighting the provinces and counties to which they belong.
Conclusions
It is crucial for tourist destinations to properly apply the concepts of branding and brand architecture and the way in which the brand portfolio is implemented, managed and developed at local, regional and national level. There are several challenges and influences that tourism organisations have to deal with, such as the political interests, the administrative borders within the territory, the assignment of responsibilities among the organisations, the budget constraints and control, the
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