ABSTRACT
Travel and tourism has become a global industry which forces destinations to develop their brand in order to compete on the global stage. Tourism is about moving people away from home, and so destinations must try to attract people based on the creation and promotion of positive images (Prebensen 2007). Thus in a tourism environment, destination branding and image creation has become one of the most powerful tools in tourism marketing, as outlined in Chapter 30 of this volume. Major objectives of any destination branding strategy are to emphasize positive images that are already held by target travellers, to correct negative images, or to create awareness through the creation of favourable images targeted to potential tourists (Pike and Ryan 2004). In recent years, the variety of available information sources has rapidly increased and fragmented, to include not only offi cial tourism marketing communications, but also online and offl ine media and word-of-mouth, and this plethora of communication channels poses a potential threat to tourist destinations in their efforts to attract visitors because of the lack of control DMOs have over the images produced through them. The aim of this chapter is to explore the concept of brand confusion in tourist destinations through its branding and image.
