Destination brand image is a major determinant of the economic future of places, and it is a product of their actions. Branding involves the design and construction of a brand identity that attempts to influence the brand image. The brand identity for tourism purposes should be integrated into a holistic branding strategy. Potential tourists are influenced by word-of-mouth, and brand loyal destination employees (residents) and customers (residents and tourists) holding positive images can act as destination brand ambassadors, producing positive word-of-mouth. This thesis used a quantitative methodology to discover the brand image of the Kingdom of Bahrain as a tourist destination by investigating both satisfaction with its attributes and holistic perception. It then investigated the positioning of foreign expatriates by comparing their images of the host destination with those of local residents and event tourists. It also explored whether demographics, attribute satisfaction or holistic perception (brand image components) can contribute to prediction of brand loyalty to the destination's tourism product, defined as recommending that others visit the destination. Bahrain's strengths and weaknesses as a destination were discovered, to provide a basis and a direction for the design of a brand identity. Expatriate responses were found to differ from those of locals and tourists significantly enough to warrant being considered a separate segment. Using logistic regression, satisfaction was found to be the best aid to predicting expatriate brand loyalty, while holistic perception was the best aid to predicting the brand loyalty of locals and event tourists. The results can contribute towards filling the gaps of Bahrain's destination image, the positioning of expatriates and the prediction of brand loyalty.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:510859 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Al-Arrayed, Lamya J. |
| Publisher | University of Strathclyde |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://oleg.lib.strath.ac.uk:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=21920 |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds