Branding views marketing: Lessons to learn for destination management

Abstract

A review of the literature on branding in general, and on destination branding more specifically, raises several questions about the branding of tourist destinations. What is clear is that confusion exists in the concept of ‘brand’ in the tourist destination context. Several propositions will be developed and explored in regards to the lack of clear definitions regarding branding and marketing, the confusion between brand and image, the lack of conception of similarities and differences between branding for consumer products and tourist destinations, the difficulty of identifying one symbol for countries, and the lack of commonlyknown brands of tourist destinations.