Special Issue "Advances in Tourism Image and Branding"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 17 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Raquel Camprubí
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Business Organisation and Management Department, Faculty of Tourism, University of Girona, 17004 Girona, Spain
Interests: tourism image; branding; destination management; tourist behavior
Dr. Ariadna Gassiot-Melian
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Business Organisation and Management Department, Faculty of Tourism, University of Girona, 17004 Girona, Spain
Interests: accessible tourism; tourism image; tourist behavior

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Academic literature claims the relevance of tourism image as a conditioning factor of destination competitiveness (Baloglu and McCleary, 1999; Dwyer and Kim, 2010; Tse and Tung, 2021), and destination competitiveness is postulated as an element of sustainable competitive advantages (Konečnik, 2002). In this sense, destinations have realized the importance of generating powerful brands that contribute to creating a positive destination image, generating awareness, reducing risk perception and highlighting emotional appeal to tourists. Therefore, destinations, especially those that have a negative image, seek to reposition their image, trying to take advantage of branding strategies.

One of the strategies that can be part of this new or renewed destination image is to associate the destination with sustainable values. For example, this can be accomplished by highlighting the importance of natural protected areas, developing eco-labels for tourism business and activities or promoting cultural traditions and local identity. It seems that all these issues can positively influence the image perception of the destination and facilitate a better positioning. Nevertheless, there is a lack of in-depth studies on the concept of “sustainability” associated with destination image and branding.

Considering this background, this Special Issue aims to attract high-quality papers focusing on issues related to destination image, image perception, branding management and sustainability, in order to extend knowledge and bring new approaches to understand these topics and their relationships. Papers focusing on the recovery of tourism destinations after the COVID-19 pandemic are especially welcome.

Dr. Raquel Camprubí
Dr. Ariadna Gassiot-Melian
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • destination image
  • tourist image
  • tourist perception
  • branding
  • communication strategy
  • risk perception
  • sustainability

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Exploring the Sustainable Development of Archaized Block Tourist Destination Based on Communicative Image and Perceptive Image
Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6858; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126858 - 17 Jun 2021
Viewed by 402
Abstract
Although archaized blocks have good development prospects as tourist destinations that reshape local characteristics in cities, they have been criticized by academic circles, and most of them are underperforming due to poor management. Therefore, facing the marginalization of the existing archaized streets in [...] Read more.
Although archaized blocks have good development prospects as tourist destinations that reshape local characteristics in cities, they have been criticized by academic circles, and most of them are underperforming due to poor management. Therefore, facing the marginalization of the existing archaized streets in various cities, it is urgent to recognize their image and value and find out the strategies that can guide their sustainable development. First of all, we changed the traditional perspective of looking at archaized block cultural attractions through the comparison of a literature review and confirmed that the archaized block should connote a sense of community, fluidity, and publicity and highlight the foundation of local culture and field development. Secondly, we selected a case as the main object and compared the correspondence between the communicative and perceptive images of local residents to construct the connection map of the relationship between local residents and the case field. This part consists of two stages: (1) Through the official information and the intervention of Means–End Chain, we confirm the communicative image and perceptive image of this field, including 13 attributes, 12 consequences, and 11 values; and (2) The collected contents of attributes, consequences, and values were merged and converted into 36 variables to form the evaluation basis for the perceptive images of local residents. Finally, we conducted descriptive statistics, factor analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression through SPSS 20.0, constructed the A–C–V relation link diagram for the relationship between the field of the case with the local residents, and interpreted the content that should be focused on and the logic behind the constructed image of the field. In addition, the analysis has shown that the archaized block’s function is not only meant for tourism, but it also acts as a network information center combining local people, local knowledge, and local cultural resources, thus highlighting the diversity and value of the archaized block. This research not only provides suggestions for the marketing and design organizations of the archaized block to improve the image of the destination, but also to help the inheritance of urban culture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Tourism Image and Branding)
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