Original scientific paper

REBRANDING OF A TOURIST DESTINATION: AN EXAMPLE OF CROATIA

Sandra Huzak

Abstract

Increasingly, destinations are looking
for new sources of competitive advantage, as the
global tourism industry become increasingly
competitive. The concept of destination branding
(DB) has received a lot of attention in recent years
both from marketing academics and practitioners,
many of whom regard it as a strong marketing
management tool for: destination rebranding,
restructuring, repositioning and even strategic
destination management. Due to its
characteristics, DB has been suggested as
especially convenient for the nations of Central
and Eastern Europe in their drive to revive their
national image and tourism. Croatia, a
Mediterranean tourist destination and a
transitional country is examined, to see whether a
holistic destination branding method is used in its
market repositioning. Findings suggest that,
although declaratively, Croatian tourism industry
is striving to use elements of holistic destination
branding, the reality is rather different.
Interestingly, the study’s findings suggest that
those elements which make the application of the
DB concept desirable in transitional countries
make its successful practical implementation
virtually impossible.

Keywords

holistic destination branding; tourism repositioning; Croatia; transitional economies; national identity; tourism brand

Hrčak ID:

61452

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/61452

Publication date:

25.11.2009.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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