Chapter 11

Destination Branding :
Building Brand Equity

© Dr. Kobby Mensah

Department of Marketing and Customer
Management
 Objectives
• Understanding Destination Branding and Brand
Equity concepts
• To conceptualize the Strategic Brand Management
process for Destinations.
• Analyse the above two in Ghanaian Context by
analysing a promoted destination in Ghana.
• Replicating the model to a popular non-promoted
destination.
 Points of Discussion
• Branding
serves to create associations and relationship of trust
• Destination Branding
provides a key to what the place is about, its offers and
the unexplored experiences it harnesses
• Branding Country, Region and City
aims at building and managing national reputation and
creates a visual image of the country which can impact
many other areas of nation’s performance.
eg- Foreign Investors
 Principles of Destination Branding
• Purpose and Potential
• Truth
• Aspirations and Betterment
• Inclusiveness and Common Good
• Creativity and Innovation
• Complexity and simplicity
• Connectivity
• Things take time
 Benefits of Destination Branding

• Branding helps to reduce the choice.

• Reduces the impact of Intangibility.
• It conveys consistency across multiple outlets and through
time.
• Reduces risk factor attached to decision-making about
holidays.
• It facilitates precise segmentation.
• Provides a focus for the integration of producer’s effort,
making different stakeholders work towards the same
outcome.
 Positioning a Destination Brand
Key Challenges
• Limited funding as compared to other goods and services.
• Establishing equilibrium between cutting edge brand
promotions and management and bureaucracy.
• Managing unstable external environment- global, regional
and national conflicts, disasters and economic challenges.
• Matching scales with changing consumer preferences- from
products to emotional experiences
• Developing core competencies , differentiation factors
which are hard to be replicated.
 Destination Brand Models
• Kaplanidou and Vogt Model

• Cai’s Model

• The Relational network brand model (Hankinson Model)

• Brands-box Model

• Marcllo Risitano’s destination branding model

 Performance Measurement
• Source of information behind destination knowledge.
(Reliability and Extensiveness)
• Willingness to visit the destination.
(Image based decision-making)
• Key attractions of the destination.

• Most preferred period for visiting the location.

• Whether or not the promotion reflects the major

attractions of the location.
 Thought Value Parameters
• Destination Brand Equity

• Performance Results.

• Brand Value Sustenance