Abstract
Nowadays the tourism sector is one of the most important economic sectors. The globalization of our world allows for better, easier, faster, and cheaper travel, and the technological progress achieved has left almost no place unknown.
We may observe that many destinations are now featuring in people's conversations. This is true for cities (urban areas) such as London, Paris, New-York or Hong-Kong which illustrate the new trend. Other destinations adopt different strategies and there it is the country which becomes a destination, such as Spain, Australia, New Zealand or India.
This relationship between brand management and tourism management is an interesting problematic of marketing. This paper will try to understand this relationship, its nature, components and consequences.
In the first part we will study the concept of destination branding and the role of Destination Marketing Organizations. In the second part we will look at the tourist destination choices and the role of Destination Branding in influencing this choice. The third part will deal with the tourist experience and introduce the hypothesis of destination branding. Does destination branding by cities or countries really reach the customers?
This report shows how marketing principles can be applied successfully to tourism management, and how a better brand strategy replaces heavy and aggressive communication.
