Destination branding: Indirect destination brand experiences, brand personalities and their relation to self-congruity.

Abstract

This study is the investigation into destination branding of a subject province in Thailand, which is the rural province under the process of development. The objective of the study is to capture the potential marketing elements that facilitate the destination brand communication strategy before the process of development will reach its completion. With the sharp increase of traveler's accessibility to the global pool of destination information, travelers nowadays become exposed to a destination brand in the earlier stage than in the past through their information searching activities, causing them to obtain richer indirect destination brand experience from destination brand communication. For this reason, chances are for DMOs (Destination Marketing Organizations) to attract them up-front even though the destination is still under the development process. The research is the quantitative research conducted with factor analysis to observe the interrelatedness among constructs and multiple regression for extracting the significant variables. Data collection was completed with 213 respondents (n=2 l 3) through the survey questionnaires distributed in a single location within Thailand. The survey results exhibited two significant positive variables towards intention to visit; self-brand congruity and indirect destination brand experience. In conclusion, when potential visitors perceive destination brand through indirect destination brand experience, self-brand congruence also activated positively towards intention to visit.