As the reorganization of Higher Education has paralleled that of the welfare-state downsizing, Universities have been challenged by governments to handle to market engagement a key social value. Beyond teaching and research, the emergence of a third mission related to science outreach, cultural/educational tourism activities appeared as an opportunity for Universities to increase revenues. Tourism in university heritage sites became not only a tool for university marketing and enhancement of corporate branding, but also contributed to brand host cities as student destinations (Pawlowska & Roget 2009; Popescu 2012; García-Rodriguez & Mendoza Jiménez 2015). As a contribution to knowledge, this research aimed to enlarge the conclusions of previous studies conducted on the universities’ changing roles and their impacts on society, culture and space (Perry & Wiewel 2008; Goddard & Vallance 2014). Tourism was introduced, not only as a consequence of university internationalization but as a dimension present in organizational behaviour of universities, which produces new place perceptions in the host cities. Consequently, the issue of collaborative place branding amongst different stakeholders in a city emerges in the rational scope of resource dependence theory, as a public diplomacy strategy with planned, concerted actions, also affecting the universities relation to the host cities. Hence, the leading research aims of the thesis are: - To investigate the motives that lead universities to adopt discourses and actions conducing to tourism activities; - To explore collaborative university-city relations in destination branding. This investigation used cross-methods in case-study research and departed from an exploratory participant-observation of the phenomenon in four different universities and countries. The classical use of an ethnographical approach as first exploratory method originated the narrowing of the research into case-studies. As a complement, a scoping questionnaire was designed in order to provide further data for answering the first aim of research. The case-study research was conducted within a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews and content analysis of university materials in their range of urban institutions communicating the city. The research results suggested that universities have a role in city branding and that tourism plays an informal part in this strategy but following different stages of implementation and approaches. The exploratory first phase of research revealed how universities have the ability to originate and plan tourism activities. The direct involvement of Higher Education Institutions with local governments and tourism stakeholders emerged as part of networking activities, events and direct involvement as tour organizers and owners of tourism interest assets and attractions. The questionnaires and interviews to respondents have indicated that the marketing and communication offices together with the international offices have gained a primary role as bridge organisms with the exterior at the formal level. Despite responding to top-down leadership, these offices have become critical connectors not only to municipalities but also to public and private destination marketing organizations (DMO´s).

Tourism as one of the biggest industries in the world has been changing continuously and rapidly. The publishing of the Brundtland Report in 1987 has accelerated the discussion about combining economic, social and environmental factors – the so-called triple-bottom line – in order to secure long-term sustainable living conditions on a finite planet for both business and society. This has lead to occurring pressure from different stakeholder groups as for example policy makers or non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) urging for more sustainable business practise within the industry whereas one important pressure group appears to be missing out in this context: the customers of mass tourism products and therefore the demand side within the economic equation. Tourists have been observed to be overall reluctant to pay price premiums for more sustainable travel alternatives and seem to “take vacation” from their everyday green behaviour. Hence at the current point of time eco-tourism appears to be a market niche in which mainly small-scale providers and NGO’s like Nature’s Best in Sweden operate. However integrating mass tourism into the consideration can be seen as a promising opportunity and from an environmental standpoint an urgent necessity as it can be argued that within an industry of this scale, even small improvements towards more sustainable behaviour bear the potential for a substantial impact. The purpose of this study therefore lies in researching the two marketing tools of brands and eco-labels and the influence they can have individually and in combination on the tourist’s decision making delimitated to the context of charter tourism in Sweden. Through the research of this study it was found that currently no directly applicable theory about the combination of brands and eco-labels seems to exist for marketing neither in general, nor for the tourism industry in particular. This strongly indicates the novelty of the topic of combining brands and eco-labels and points out research opportunities. In order to achieve this purpose, a mixed-method research design was used combining qualitative expert interviews from direct business representatives and a quantitative data collection utilizing the scholarly acknowledged marketing research method of conjoint analysis in one of its most up-to-date forms of an adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis. Theory from different fields of study as consumer behaviour and decision making, branding and eco-labelling as well as sustainability marketing was combined and translated into the new and emerging service category of sustainable tourism. From this a conceptual framework was developed combining the data collection results from the mixed-method approach. This leads to the identification of ways for improving current charter tourism companies’ marketing based on the customers’ current view on utilities within certain aspects of the tourism package. Overall this study therefore contributes to the discussion on how demand for sustainable products evolves and can likely be increased. This is seen as a valuable theoretical, practical and societal contribution as it helps improving tourism companies’ understanding of their customer base and supports offering products/services with an improved perceived individual and societal value for charter tourism companies that aim for a higher degree of sustainability in their objectives.

Magistrinio darbo tikslas – ištirti šalį kaip turizmo prekinį ženklą, pabrėžiant emocinio elemento svarbą. Šalies ženklas yra šalies prekinis ženklas, priklausantis vietovės ženklų grupei. Šalies ženklas skiriasi nuo kitų prekinių ženklų ir pasižymi: ilgaamžiškumu, globalumu, funkcionalumu, socialumu, daugialypiškumu, substitucionalumu, emocionalumu, yra suvokiamas kaip „mados aksesuaras. Dėl nuolat vykstančių ekonominių, socialinių bei politinių pakitimų, šalies ženklas turi būti atnaujinamas. Šio proceso metu koreaguojamas ar formuojamas šalies įvaizdis. Magistriniame darbe pateikiamas rekomendacijų sąrašas, kuriuo galima naudotis kuriant ar atnaujinant šalies ženklą; taip pat aprašomi turistų poreikiai, motyvai bei elgsena. Egzistuoja keletas emocijų tipų, tačiau dažniausiai jos klasifikuojamos į įgimtas, vidines ir situacines, taip pat į teigiamas ir neigiamas. Prekinio ženklo įtraukimo koncepcija apima marketingo komunikacijas, reklamą, vartotojų elgseną bei parodo emocinį ryšį su šalies ženklu. Anksteni empiriniai tyrimai parodė reprezentacinį prekinio ženklo aspektą esant svarbesnį nei funkcinis, kas leido manyti, jog formuojant nuomonę apie šalies ženklą svarbios emocijos. Taigi buvo inicijuotas nuajas empirinis tyrimas, kuriame tirtos šalies reklamų bei logotipų sukeliamos emocijos, nulemenčios požiųrį į šalies ženklą. Pasirinkats foklus grupės interviu vyko Danijoje, anglų kalba apklausiant skirtingų tautybių 21-27 metų amžiaus studentus. Tyrimo metu iškeltos 6... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The main point of the master’s thesis is to analyze country as a tourism brand emphasizing its emotional element. Country brand is one of the many brand types and belongs to the group of destination brands, which is oriented to the tourism sector. Country brand differs from other brand types and is characterized as being global, functional, social, multiple, substitute, emotional, and durable. In relation with economical, political or social changes re-branding process is needed in order to shape or even recover country image. In this work the list of most popular recommendations for successful country brand creation or re-branding is proposed some perceptions of tourist’s needs, motivations and travel behavior are also given. While analyzing the perception of emotions the difference of the main terms is described: “emotions” reveal the emotional reactions and the “affect” has the meaning of the emotional experience. There are several types of emotions: one classifies them into inherent, intrinsic and incidental; the other classification notes emotions being positive, negative and bi-directional. Conception of involvement includes marketing communications, advertising, consumer behavior and shows the strength of the emotional relation with the country brand. Previous empirical research of destination branding has proved importance of stressing its representational aspect. This can be done through the emotions evoked. For this reason another research was initialized to... [to full text]