TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of functional associations in building destination brand personality
T2 - When official websites do the talking
AU - Vinyals-Mirabent, Sara
AU - Kavaratzis, Mihalis
AU - Fernández-Cavia, José
N1 - Funding Information:
This research work has been partially funded by the project “The tourist on the Web: informational habits and destination choice. ITOURIST” (CSO2014-59896-P), of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government.
Funding Information:
Dr. Sara Vinyals-Mirabent is the corresponding author and a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Communication, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She is part of the research group Communication, Advertising, and Society (CAS) and the research project ITOURIST, funded by the Spanish government. Her research interests are mainly centered on the areas of persuasive communication and place branding. In particular, she is currently working on the contribution of online communication practices to building brand image and personality and on the online informational habits of users.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2019/12
Y1 - 2019/12
N2 - Destinations ‘talk’ about themselves via online media to build strong brand personalities. However, previous research points to the influence of other associations linked to the destination in determining the credibility of the aforementioned personality. This research aims to identify the potential of certain types of functional associations ―attractions― in strengthening projected personality through discourse. With this aim in mind, we analyze the content of twelve official European urban destination websites. The results expand on previous research by identifying how different aspects of what a destination has to offer help portray personality traits. There is huge potential to use attractions to better project desired personality traits, which leads to a better fit between the personality and the overall projected image. The findings have significant implications both for brand managers to enable them to optimize their communication, and for future research. The projected personality of destinations should not be studied independently from the functional dimension of brand image.
AB - Destinations ‘talk’ about themselves via online media to build strong brand personalities. However, previous research points to the influence of other associations linked to the destination in determining the credibility of the aforementioned personality. This research aims to identify the potential of certain types of functional associations ―attractions― in strengthening projected personality through discourse. With this aim in mind, we analyze the content of twelve official European urban destination websites. The results expand on previous research by identifying how different aspects of what a destination has to offer help portray personality traits. There is huge potential to use attractions to better project desired personality traits, which leads to a better fit between the personality and the overall projected image. The findings have significant implications both for brand managers to enable them to optimize their communication, and for future research. The projected personality of destinations should not be studied independently from the functional dimension of brand image.
KW - Destination brand personality
KW - Destination branding
KW - Destination image
KW - Destination marketing
KW - Official websites
KW - Online communication
KW - Projected brand personality
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10230/41735
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85065718461
U2 - 10.1016/j.tourman.2019.04.022
DO - 10.1016/j.tourman.2019.04.022
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85065718461
SN - 0261-5177
VL - 75
SP - 148
EP - 155
JO - Tourism Management
JF - Tourism Management
ER -