Place Branding And Sustainable Development Marketing Essay

Place Branding And Sustainable Development Marketing Essay According to Tasci and Kozak, as an interdisciplinary area, tourism borrows and applies many aspects from other areas of inquiry; branding is one of them from the field of marketing (p.300). This chapter is to examine the discipline that encompasses literature on the place branding. It is comprised of two parts. The first part concerns with place branding and its branding initiatives, and the second part is regarding the brand image formation process of tourism destination that leads to sustainable growth of the tourism industry. This literature review is divided into several sections. It begins with a general discussion of place marketing, following on with a clear distinction regarding the term place brand and the term place branding from a marketing perspective. Moreover, place branding will be examined to illustrate the relationship of branding and in tourism literature, with various place branding context such as brand identity, brand image and brand equity. Marketing of a Place Marketing of a place is defined as a strategic planning procedures attempted by places brand developers with the objectives of satisfying the variety needs of target markets (Kotler et al, 1999). Market-a-place is able to give positive contribution to the economy of a country. However, there is a shifting from rather narrow view of economic development to broader set of strategies and plans since the past few decades (Govers Go, 2009). These strategies are aimed at attracting new businesses, strengthen traditional culture of a country, developed global trade, build tourism industry and target local and foreign investors from outside the country (Kotler et al, 2008). Furthermore, some places have transformed their informal economic campaigns into highly targeted, stylish marketing strategies aimed at building competitive markets within diverse consumer segments, targeting specific buyers, and positioning the communitys resources in order to respond to the specific buyers needs and wa nts (Maheshwari et al, 2011). Hence, many countries aim to promote economic growth by improving their physical infrastructure with high technology facilities, thereby upgrade the place image which in turn brings in more business opportunities and growth. Moreover, marketing a place is not considered to be more than just carrying out few promotional activities, but it involves specific planning initiatives that is designed to encourage the processes that would further increase a place identity and profile, therefore attractive more new inward investments, improving the infrastructure and strengthening the public and private sector services. As a result, developing an effective place marketing strategies is now considered to be the important focal point to local economic development plans (Walker, 2000). Place Brand Place brand is the peoples perception about a place, region or a country; and also the reputation of a place among those people that the place embraces (Anholt, 2005). Place brand is considered complex and multi-dimensional construct with constantly changing reputation as people will have different perceptions of a place; no matter from residents, investors or visitors. According to Anholt (2005), place brand is various individual perceptions and beliefs which coincide at some point but may have different point of view from others. Gold (2006) explain that place brand is residual perception left in the mind of recipient regarding a place after encountering its various facets either through their own experience, expose towards the media, through word-of-mouth or from purchasing of goods and services. Likewise, the worlds marketplace is currently going through the phase of globalisation. According to Kotler and Gerner (2004), place brand is considered an important requirement because of the advancement of technology, and increase mobility of people and resource in this 21st century. Moreover, the advance brand theories of city marketing, nation branding and destination marketing (Anholt, 2004) such as those applied specifically to countries, destinations, regions and cities have been developed to increase their respective images. Largely, this has been achieved by nurturing the tangible and intangible assets of a place, such as culture and heritage, aborigine architecture, local skills, prosperous communities and investments for good future growth. Place brand is thus a process that will facilitate the creation of the most realistic and most compelling strategic vision for a city, region or country (Placebrands, 2006). This is to ensure that a place can get appreciation that it deserves for its existent strengths and positive attributes and behaviours, and that the place brand gains appropriate brand equity from the recognition which those behaviours bring (Keller, 2008). Also, place brand provides a far broader spectrum of research areas if compared to those associated purely with conventional brand management, and brand strategy. It has attracted interest from the areas of sociology, history, national identity, geography and politics. Nevertheless, place brand still remains as an area that is still predominantly practitioner-led and where academic research-led knowledge has been slow to accumulate, although greater interest from academics is now beginning to develop. Place Branding The concept of place branding is consisting of many parts and elements, which requires an in-depth analysis of the literature. As such, to define the term place is essential for this research. According to Buhalis (2000), place is considered as an amalgams of tourism products, which can offer an integrated experience to the people (p.97). As a result, a place is something of like products and experiences that are available rather than geographical scale and cultural diversity. So a place can be comprised of a wide variety of diverse attributes which it can be called as a city, a country or a continent. Hu and Ritchie (1993) explained that a tourism place is a package of tourism facilities and services in which like any other consumers product or service, is composed of a number of multidimensional attributes that together determine its attractiveness to a particular individual in a given choice of situation (p.26). Indeed, a tourism place is much subjected to different individual per ceptions and thus there is a need for differentiation and competitiveness transpires. As a result, the ability to attract the tourists attention to a particular place and to spark their curiosity can be achieved by the means of place branding. Meanwhile, Hankinson (2004) defined branding in the context of a place brand as the built environment in which the various services forming part of the core brand take place (p.117). Another author Fan (2006) argued that nation branding is concern with applying branding and marketing communications techniques in order to promote a nations image (p.6). Further explanation from this author is that place branding is to promote the country or city as a destination for tourism (Fan, 2006, p.7). As a matter of fact, wide definitions have been suggested for place branding due to lack of agreement among academics (Pike, 2008). Regardless of the wide array of place branding definitions within the academic literature, place branding can best describe in this research as : (a) the set of marketing activities that support the creation of name, logo or other graphic that can identify and differentiate a place; (b) a brand that can give a memorable travelling experience that is associated with that place; (c) activities that can serve to create a branding image that positively influences consumer choice of destination (Blain et al, 2005). To differentiate a place from the rest of the competitors is a key function of a place branding. The ability to capture the attention of potential tourist to a place and to foster an emotional connection between the individual and destination is essential element of brand effectiveness (Morgan Pritchard, 2004). According to Nickerson and Moisey (1999), showing the feelings and emotions in place marketing campaigns will capture the attention of consumers, but not all will have the same feeling and perceptions. Rather than capture the feeling of consumer through photo, it would be more effective to provide visual image with feature such as mountain or sea that will allow the consumer to have the sense of relaxation, physical challenge or spirituality. To enhance successful connection between customer emotion and that particular place, a place brand must be deliverable, differentiating, conveying powerful ideas and must be enthusing for stakeholders, especially the consumer. As a resul t, if a place has the capable to market itself through positive image building, it will help to differentiate itself among other places that offering the same characteristics (Cai, 2002). Further explanation from Moilanen and Rainisto (2009) is that strong national brand must not only attract business and investments, it must also help to promote the goals of the tourism industry that will strengthen the national identity. Moilanen and Rainisto (2009) identified that brand development process takes a long period of time with time span of five to ten years, due to the numerous steps involved in the process; this include: (a) start-up and organise, (b) research stage, (c) forming brand identity, (d) making execution and enforcement plan, and (e) implementation and follow up. One of the critical elements of place brand is positioning. Positioning is establishing an image for a product or service in relation to others in the marketplace (Hudson, 2005, p.54). To attain competitive advantage in the marketplace, three steps under positioning are needed to be followed: product differentiation, prioritising and selecting the competitive advantage, and communication and delivering the position. Moreover, Pike (2008) noted the three core positioning elements for a place, including the place name, the symbol and the positioning slogan (p.299). These are important as they represent something good about a place and that help to differentiate the product from the competitors. Yet, brand logo is important as it is the visual representation of a product, service, company or a place that is being advertised. Logo should be able to achieve product identification and differentiation, as well as to raise consumer awareness and enhance recognition (Blain et al, 2005; Hender son et al, 2003). In relation to introducing a place to consumers, the logo should attract and stimulate the interest of consumer and influence destination of choice (Blain et al, 2005). Place Brand Identity According to Cai (2002), brand identity is often regarded as a missing link between branding and image building, meaning that image building does not consider the identity. In fact, Olins (2002) argued that despite of changing country names and political contexts, for example, nations have always been engaged in building their identities. Morgan et al (2002) claimed that brand thus represents the identity of a place and is likely to be relevant across markets being the core of the proposition of a country. Hankinson (2004) explained that the destination brand core, which represents an identity of a place, include a statement of brand personality, positioning and brand reality. According to Morgan et al (2002), sometimes brand identity and brand personality is termed as the same. However, Ekinci and Hosany (2006) claimed that brand personality is dealing with human traits and thus is different from identity. Research on tourism has traditionally drawn from economic and cultural geography. Approaches inspired by cultural geography view identity as an essence of nationhood or community (Palmer, 1999; Ballesteros Ramirez, 2007). Sometimes, marketing and culturally inspired approaches to identity may seem contradictory, because some perspectives see branding as a sense of place, detracting from a countrys essence and superficially commodifying nationhood. However, both of these approaches seem to view identity as a reality of a destination or restricted as an expression of a brand personality (Cornelissen Harris, 2001). Drawing from identity discussions in marketing and organisational literature, the attempts to a more holistic aspect towards destination identity have occurred. According to Berry (2000), brand identity is not only customers dominant perceptions of the brand, but also constructed in an ongoing relationship with the brand, and adding meaning or value to the consumer. Tourists and also residents defined meanings of places by being at places, by consuming and by interacting with others at the place and thereby forming a social communication system (Snepenger et al, 2004). Williams et al (2006) explained that brand identity is determined by the visitors values and how well they align with the experiences that they have encountered. This view emphasises visitors perspective as the source of place brand identity. To conclude, these approaches seem to view a place identity being not something that a destination has but something that will engage in social interaction. In the corporate identity studies, the focus has expanded to employees and other stakeholders besides the customers (He Balmer, 2007). Leitch and Richardson (2003) claimed that the understanding of stakeholders towards the organisation identity is continuously evolving in an unpredictable process and thus corporate brand is considered to be the outcome of an interactive process with stakeholders. Stakeholders may not only involving customers or visitors but also local people, associations, politicians etc. Hence, place identity is identified as originating in the interaction by all components, characteristics and stakeholders of a place. Moreover, in the branding context, place identity and brand identity are in identical context, as customer-centric view sees the place brand identity as a perceptual entity in the customers mind, and the destination-centric view defines brand identity in terms of how the brand owners want the brand to be seen (Kavaratzis Ashworth, 2006). Place Brand Image How people perceive a country or a specific region is developed based on individual basis. As such, how perceived images can be created will solely depends on personal beliefs and demographic factors. According to Pike (2008), the research area related to place image has been studied in the literature of tourism in more than 30 years. Richardson and Crompton (1988) claimed that place image is dictated through income and is reflected towards the attributes of vacation. Kozak (2002) noted a variety of factors that may have influence on choice of destination in terms of place image income, age, personality, distance, risk and motivation. Further research is that people perception towards place image will be influence by information source from various media outlets. From the advertising perspective, the challenge would be to capture images that most likely enhancing an image of that particular destination, motivation towards purchase decision and induce visitation (Butler Bennett, 200 8). Anholt (2004) explained that in order to develop an individuals perception of a place will be depending upon six areas, based on National Brand Hexagon: tourism, exports, governance, investment and immigration, culture heritage, and people. Therefore, how a tourist perceives a place is not only influenced by information sources, but will also influenced by the policies and national identity of that country. There are broad ranges of meanings for the term image and the concepts of place image have been introduced within the academic literature (Cai, 2002; Gali Donaire, 2005; Goodall, 1992). The American Marketing Association (2009) defined brand image as how a brand is perceived in the mind of a consumer, and it is what consumers think, feel and expect about a product. Consequentially, emotional connection in between people and the projected product image is interrelated that will influence their buying behaviour. With regards to image of a place rather than a tangible product, the term place image is defined by Buhalis (2000) as what a traveller expect and perceive towards a destination or a place. Cai (2002) noted that place image are subjective introspections that are held in the mind of the visitor and that illustrate the complexity of a place brand which requires the need to market specific attributes in order to reduce further ambiguity by tourists. To go to a larger extent, the i mage formation process can be further influence by a promoted place personality. According to Ekinci and Hosany (2006), a place personality is the set of human characteristics in accordance to a place as perceived by tourist rather than from a local resident viewpoint. It is important to identify the personality traits of visitor as there are possible emotional connection between tourist and a particular place. It can be argued that there is a possibility that the place image can be perceived differently based on the type of traveller involved in. For example, a perception of a place by business tourists may have different perceptions by adventure tourists towards a particular place. Added by Bigne et al (2001) is that image will influence a tourist in the process of choosing a stay, the subsequent evaluation of that stay and his or her future intentions of whether he or she will come back to the place again. As a result, place image has a significant function as a place can influen ce the tourist prior to travel, throughout travel by means of their behaviour, and upon return after their travel experience. Regardless of the place brand being marketed, a place image is often changed by personal stereotypes, past experiences or word-of-mouth. Therefore, even though different types of tourist might view a place differently, it is still an integral part for a place to have the initiative to market the place effectively; as this will minimise unsecure feeling among the potential tourists and enhance the identity of that place. Place Brand Equity In the economic context, brand equity is a term defined as the brand value as determined by the consumers, usually in a measurement of performance (Aaker Biel, 1993; Pike, 2008). Brand equity is usually comprised of five assets name awareness, perceived quality, brand associations, brand loyalty and other proprietary brand assets (Asker Biel, 1993). How successful a product or service will be looking at brand equity, as it is considered the last stage in branding process; whereby consumers will be loyal to that particular product or service in long-term period of time. However, for place branding, especially in the tourism context, the measurement of product brand equity as mentioned earlier is ineffective due to the intangibility of the brand itself; as a result, consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) was introduced. CBBE is termed as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand, and is made up of two underlying attributes brand aware ness and brand image (Keller, 1993, p.8). However, Pike (2008) suggested another four attributes for CBBE: brand awareness, brand associations, brand resonance and brand loyalty. It can be explained that brand equity is depending on how consumers are aware of the brand itself (brand awareness), as what the previous researchers have agreed upon. Essentially, increased brand awareness and having positive image will lead to increase consumers choice and lastly to increase tourist arrivals due to effective marketing of the brand (Keller, 1993). More likely, tourist will revisit the place again in the future and spread good things about the place. Added by this researcher is that there are two different approaches to measuring CBBE, namely the indirect and direct approach. The indirect approach attempts to assess potential source of CBBE through brand knowledge measurement, while the direct approach attempts to measure CBBE more directly by assessing the brand knowledge of consumer throu gh responses of different elements of marketing program. Hence, consumers ability to be able to recognise with a place brand and make associations is a determinant of how effective is the marketing campaign. Aaker (1991) explained that there are 11 types of brand associations: product attributes, intangibles, customer benefits, price, application, customer, celebrity, lifestyle/personality, product class, competitors and country/geographical area (p.114). These associations can help the consumer to relate the brand to specific attributes, therefore increasing brand awareness and to recall the brand information. As a result, the greater the ability consumer can make these associations, the greater likelihood that success can be placed on the marketing initiatives. Place Branding and Sustainable Development Campbell (1996) claimed that sustainable development is comprises of elusive elements that represent three areas: development, property and resource conflicts of conventional planning strategy, around which are the key planning goals such as economic growth, social harmony, employment and financial relief and environmental protection. As such, sustainable development involves reformation and restricting of local economic and political policies to regeneration and planning activities all with the aim to have success growth in the future. Meanwhile, to achieve ongoing local development from a places perspective is to consider hosting large events (Andranovich et al, 2001) such as Olympic through the mega-event strategy, like South Korea (1988), Australia (2000) or China (2008). Studies on places that had hosted or were about to host these games had provide to provide some direct benefits such as infrastructure development, improved economical and political support. This can show that such mega-events can have positive impacts on brand image and the ability to increase future economic growth of a place that leads to sustainable development of the place. Nevertheless, there are few uncertainties associated with place branding campaigns (might be due to limited funding and tangible resources) which seek to have low raising awareness and limits the differentiation of place branding process to the mere propagation of logos and symbols (Hankinson, 2001). Added by him is that places that have successful attracting appropriate resources have however, successful in developing positive brand images; for instance, resources such as heritage and history and attractive place-specific facets. Generally, the development of positive brand images such as these has led to the successful transformation of several post-industrial cities, such as Seoul, Beijing, Bangkok into vibrant leisure and business tourism destinations which reflect sustainable development and continuous growth aspects (Ward, 1998). As such, there is very little evidence that place branding are essential drivers of sustainable development of a place. However, according to Pedersen (2004), there were few publications suggested there is a link between successful place branding and sustainability. For example, in a survey in 2002 commissioned by the Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board, Singapore was seen, by a broad selection of selection of travellers and tourist agents from USA, Japan, India, Germany, Australia, UK and Sweden as clean, modern and safe. Chinas dominant image and attraction was culture. Whereas Thailand had a brand image of exotic, fun and friendly people. Tourism as an Economic Development Tourism has contributed to the economic growth of a country, and is considered the most profit-making industry. Yet, the tourism market has the ability to transform an emerging place both positively and negatively. Tourism industry itself has variety of sub-sectors that can cater to different tourists demands. According to Hudson (2005), tourism is a powerful economic force that is able to provide employment, foreign exchange, income and tax revenue (p.4). This identifies that tourism development is a powerful tool for change and cause for rapid global transformation. The interest gained within the academia concerning tourism marketing and place branding is a preview of the importance of place differentiation. Clancy (1999) explained that when developing countries tend to promote tourism, they put into account by greater integration into worlds economy, leading to direct economic and political effects on the region. With that, the contribution of tourism to the worlds economy will en courage place marketing organisations to become more innovation in their advertisement in order to attract more tourist arrivals. As a result, the importance of place branding and marketing campaigns are vital in this growing global competition. Moreover, the needs of a community are reflected in marketing policies which contributes to the economic development. To achieve this, creative strategies need to be memorable in the market the area and to encourage travel so as to gain economic benefits of tourism, for example, a study of competitive advantage of Oresund region using place branding as tool (Pederson, 2004), and the case of New Zealands tourism development (Ryan Zahra, 2004). As a result, sustainable development is still considered vital in increasing the number of tourists into a country, modernising the infrastructure and encourage more inward investments. Sarawak Tourism Industry Sarawak is situated in the Borneo Island and is part of the state of Malaysia. It is considered the largest state in Malaysia, and is considered an adventure land covered with a dense rainforest, and jungle-clad hills. Sarawak is a destination that usually provides unique products and experiences to visitors who come to Sarawak. According to Sarawak Tourism Board (2011), Sarawak is the place for history, mystery, romance and exotic adventures. Sarawak tourism started from the cultural tradition and heritage from different ethnic groups in Sarawak which successfully attract visitors to come. This ancient rainforest land is a home to 27 ethnic groups, whereby these people have their own language, lifestyle and culture. Apart from that, Sarawaks treasure of natural wonders is best appreciated in its many protected national parks and ancient rainforests like alluring caves and exotic wildlife. Its protected national parks are sanctuary to rare flora and fauna, such as Orang-utans, probos cis monkey, mouse deer, and a variety of birds, with the famous protected wildlife like the hornbills (SEDC, 2010). One of the states most alluring attractions is the Mulu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring razor-sharp limestone pinnacles (UNESCO, 2012). According to the deputy minister of tourism, Datuk Dr. James Dawos Mamit, he said that there is still a need to come up with effective strategies to promote Sarawak. He encouraged those tourism players to be more active and work together so that Sarawak tourism can be successful in the South East Asia region. Besides that, due to lack of promotion in Sarawak tourism industry, the ministry has set up facilities like websites and fairs in order to promote tourism related products and packages. He also mentioned that industry players should make more effort on their part, citing the embarrassing brochures provide by some tour agencies because he observed that they are not giving good information towards specific destination (Bernama, 2011). In 2009, Minister of Urban Development and Tourism, Datuk Michael Manyi set the Sarawak tourism industry a target of 5 million visitors by 2011 (Press Collections, 2009). In association with the announcement of this target, the Sarawak Tourism Board initiated a Discover Sarawak campaign, with the aim to promote Sarawak to the rest of the world. Only 3.8 million outbound and inbound visitors came to Sarawak in 2011. Nevertheless, 3.3 million visitors had visited Sarawak in 2010 (Ministry of Tourism and Heritage Sarawak, 2011). This can be shown that the number of visitors has maintained at about 3 million visitors. Despite the increased marketing effort to attract a greater number of visitors and higher levels of visitor spend, a recent report (Borneo Talk, 2011) has found out that there is still a dominance of day visitors from the immediate surrounding area with low levels of associated visitor spend. Moreover, there is a perceived belief by local tourism industry that Sarawak suffe rs from lack of identity and low awareness by potential visitors, especially when compared with other similar but seemingly higher profile destinations, such as Sabah state. As such, Sarawak is frequently omitted from Malaysia travel features in the national press, despite the fact that Sarawak tourism players having embarked on a proactive public relations programme which included hosting a number of visits for travel writers. Although these visits have directly resulted in some positive press coverage in the media, Sarawak still appears to maintain a low profile. Added on is the statement made by the Malaysian Tourism Ministry where efforts had been made over the years to get more flights from international routes to Sarawak but with little progress (Borneo Post, 2012). This has shown that Sarawak has least number of international flights if compared to other states of Malaysia. This can be problematic in such a highly competitive market, as well as economic uncertainty. The question for Sarawak tourism government is why some countries which has the same characteristics as Sarawak are able to attract more visitors than others? There must be few lessons that Sarawak can opt to gain from these countries. It can be said that Sarawak has not focused on active marketing of its tourism industry. Despite the governments interest in making Sarawak as a famous travel and tourism industry among the foreigners, marketing of the industry has not gone beyond the concept of branding. Conclusion Throughout the academic literature within both tourism and marketing disciplines, insight into the different aspects of place branding has confirmed its complexity. While place branding has been researched for decades, place branding initiatives towards sustainable tourism development have not been extensively researched. Nickerson and Mosey (1999) claimed that there is a lack of practical application and field research concerning place branding and the travel decision process of tourists. Also, Boo et al (2009) identified there is also the lack of research of place brand measurement as evaluated by tourists which confirms the complexity of this issue of place branding. Generally, there is a call for further research combining place branding and sustainable development of tourism destination for travel and choices of place. An enhanced understanding of the correlation of these issues will aid in recommending effective place branding strategies in order to ensure tourists satisfaction . The places ability to effectively market itself will require in-depth analysis of image perception and therefore further research will help to conceptualise this multidimensional issue. This paper has combined both tourism and marketing disciplines and had set out to further enhance comprehension of what tourists seek in a place brand.