Leveraging export brands through a tourism destination brand

Abstract

This study presents a theoretical and practical model of how the development of a country as a tourism destination brand creates leverage for its products and services in export markets. To effect this leverage, it is essential to conceptualise the tourism system as a network of interacting service providers rather than as a channel of distribution. This aids in the management of the multiplexity of interactions between tourists and the destination's products and services that affect the development and success of the brand in leveraging export products. The theoretical models of the tourism system, the tourism product (experience) and country brand are operationalised and fused so that a detailed process emerges which describes how the brand can link the tourism experience with the products and services that facilitate it. The systematic management of this facilitation process permits a gradual extension of the tourism brand attributes to other products and services destined for export in four stages.