国外旅游目的地品牌化研究现状与分析

20世纪90年代末以来,旅游目的地品牌化研究逐步受到关注。本文在回顾国外相关研究文献的基础上,从旅游目的地品牌化概念、旅游目的地品牌构建、旅游目的地品牌传播、旅游目的地品牌管理以及旅游目的地品牌评估等五个方面对研究状况进行归纳,并就其中存在的某些局限提出了一些见解,以供国人在相关研究中参考。

CURRENT RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS OF OVERSEAS STUDIES ON TOURIST DESTINATION BRANDING

With increasing competition,higher substitutability,more tourism information and tourist experience,the battles for tourists in tomorrow’s marketplace will be fought not over price but over hearts and minds.As the most powerful marketing weapon that is available to contemporary marketers,destination branding has gained attention since the late 1990s.But research related to aspects of what is now regarded as destination branding had been reported long prior to this time,such as: destination image,destination positioning,destination slogans,however,at that time they were not in the context of branding.This paper summarized relevant studies overseas regarding tourist destination branding,which includes the researches on the concepts of destination branding,construction of destination brand,communication of destination brand,management of destination brand and evaluation of destination brand.From the review we can see,the breadth and depth of the destination branding research has been enhanced in recent years,the whole process from developing brand identity,positioning the brand in the market to measuring the performance of the brand was involved.But as can be seen,the consolidated definition for destination branding hasn’t built up,some potential research gaps still exist,such as implementing destination brand umbrella strategies,involving different stakeholders in branding,generating different brand positioning strategies to suit the needs of different markets,evaluating destination brand performance etc.We should pay more attention to the issues mentioned above,to solve the problem through building umbrella brand to represent the interests of a diverse range of active stakeholders,extracting a narrow brand positioning proposition from a diverse range of things and emphasizing specific attributes to different market segments,representing stakeholders’ diverse perspectives and interests,absorbing local residents in branding process and making brand identity represents their sense of place,tracking the performance of destination brand etc.Domestic study on destination branding is less than overseas,the paper reviews the studies of this area in the hope of providing researchers and practitioners with a guide to develop,implement and measure destination brands.We hope that more attention will be directed by academic researchers to the potential research gaps proposed.