Gaining competitive advantage through destination branding: a factorial analysis

ABSTRACT

Tourism in many developing countries is viewed as a strategic industry for socio-economic development. Therefore, competitive strategies are prevalent in marketing key anchor products like sea, sun, sand, and wildlife. The competitiveness of tourism destinations depends on how it is viewed. Formed images, about a place, determine whether to buy or not the product “destination”. This paper examines how destination branding can gain competitive advantage by modelling a factorial analysis to check interactions between elements. Study findings indicate a statistically significant association between destination branding and competitive advantage.

KEYWORDS:

• Competitive advantage
• destination branding
• destination image
• branding orientation
• branding personality
• Kenya

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wendy Rop

Wendy Rop is a lecturer in strategic tourism management, Department of Tourism and Tour Operations Management, Moi University, Kenya. Her primary research interests are tourism product development, destination branding, marketing and management