Tourism Marketing III: Destination Image Development, the Attributes of Destinations, Destination Resource Analysis, Image Formation and Its Agents, Measuring Destination Image (Structured and Unstructured), Destination Branding and the Unique Destination Proposition, Place Branding, Product Development and Packaging, and Institutional Support and Public–Private Partnership in Destination Marketing

A destination is a place with attractions and services that visitors choose to visit, and it is an amalgam of products owned by many different people. Dimitrios Buhalis (2000) summarised its attributes as six A's: attractions (natural, man-made, heritage, events); accessibility (the transport system of routes, terminals and vehicles); amenities (accommodation, food, retail and other services); available packages (prearranged by intermediaries); activities (all that visitors do during their stay); and ancillary services (banks, telecommunications, hospitals and the like). A destination's competitiveness depends on how well these are combined and managed; the model of J. R. Brent Ritchie and Geoffrey Crouch separates core resources and attractors, supporting factors and resources, destination policy, planning and development, destination management, and qualifying and amplifying determinants such as location, safety and cost.

Destination resource analysis is the systematic inventory and evaluation of what a destination has to offer. It lists natural resources (landscape, climate, wildlife, water), cultural and heritage resources (monuments, living culture, cuisine, crafts), built resources (infrastructure, accommodation, venues), human resources (skills, hospitality, languages) and organisational resources (institutions and partnerships). Each resource is then assessed for its quality and uniqueness, its drawing power (local, regional, national or international), its accessibility and seasonality, its carrying capacity and condition, and its competitive position against rival destinations. The result shows which resources can carry the brand, which need investment and which must be protected, and it is the basis both of the image the destination projects and of product development.

Destination image, in John Crompton's classic definition (1979), is the sum of the beliefs, ideas and impressions that a person has of a destination. It matters because tourists choose among places they have never seen on the strength of the image in their minds, and because it colours their satisfaction when they arrive. Image has cognitive components (beliefs and knowledge about attributes), affective components (feelings towards the place) and a conative component (the intention to visit), and Seyhmus Baloglu and Ken McCleary (1999) showed how the cognitive and affective together produce an overall image. Clare Gunn described its formation in seven phases: the accumulation of mental images from everyday sources (the organic image); the modification of those images by information sought or received about travel (the induced image); the decision to travel; travel to the destination; participation there; the return home; and the modification of the image by the experience.

Destination image can be measured in two ways. Structured methods give respondents a list of attributes (scenery, cleanliness, safety, friendliness, value for money, nightlife) and ask them to rate the destination on each with a Likert or semantic differential scale; the ratings can be averaged, compared across destinations and reduced to underlying dimensions by factor analysis. They are easy to administer and analyse but capture only the attributes the researcher thought of, and they miss the holistic and unique aspects of image. Unstructured methods let respondents describe the destination in their own words, through free elicitation ("what images come to mind when you think of Goa?"), open-ended questions, focus groups or the analysis of photographs and texts, and the answers are content-analysed to find the most frequent themes. They capture the holistic and unique, but are harder to compare and quantify.

Charlotte Echtner and J. R. Brent Ritchie (1991, 1993) proposed that destination image has three continua: attribute-based to holistic (individual features versus overall impressions), functional to psychological (directly observable characteristics such as prices and beaches versus intangible ones such as friendliness and atmosphere), and common to unique (traits shared by many destinations versus those peculiar to one). Because structured scales capture mainly the attribute-based, common and functional parts, they recommended combining them with three open-ended questions: what images or characteristics come to mind when you think of the destination; how you would describe the atmosphere or mood you would expect to experience there; and which distinctive or unique tourist attractions you can think of there. These unstructured questions are what the syllabus's "unstructured image" refers to. Worked example of a structured rating: if five respondents rate a destination's cleanliness 5, 4, 4, 3 and 4 on a five-point scale, the mean is 20 ÷ 5 = 4.0.

Destination branding gives a place a name, a visual identity and, above all, a consistent promise that differentiates it from competitors and creates an emotional connection with visitors. Its perspectives differ: marketers see the brand as a communications tool (a logo and slogan), strategists as the positioning of the whole destination, and residents and governments as an expression of identity. Its challenges are greater than for a product brand: the destination is owned and delivered by many stakeholders with different interests; the marketer controls neither the product nor the service on the ground; budgets are small against global competitors; political cycles change priorities; the place has many images for many markets; and crises, from disasters to crime reports, can damage it overnight. Consistency over many years matters more than any single campaign.

The Unique Destination Proposition (UDP) is the destination's counterpart of the unique selling proposition: the single, distinctive and credible benefit that only this destination can offer and that matters to the target market. It is found through resource analysis and image research, where the unique, holistic and psychological images of Echtner and Ritchie reveal what visitors already feel is special, and it is expressed in the brand line and imagery. Examples are "Incredible India" (2002), built on the country's incomparable diversity; Kerala's "God's Own Country", on its green, tranquil landscape; and, abroad, "100% Pure New Zealand" (1999) and "Malaysia, Truly Asia". Place branding is the broader branding of a city, region or country for tourism, investment, talent and exports together; Simon Anholt's Nation Brands Index measures a country's image on a hexagon of six dimensions, tourism, exports, governance, investment and immigration, culture and heritage, and people, and argues that a place's reputation is built by what it does, not only by what it advertises.

At destination level, product development means turning resources into experiences visitors can buy: developing circuits that link attractions (the Buddhist, heritage and wildlife circuits), creating events and festivals that give reasons to visit in the off-season, adding interpretation, trails, viewpoints and visitor centres, upgrading access and amenities, and encouraging new accommodation and activities. Packaging at destination level combines these with transport and stay into offers that intermediaries can sell, such as a state tourism corporation's packages or themed itineraries promoted with tour operators. The Ministry of Tourism's infrastructure schemes, Swadesh Darshan for theme-based circuits and destinations and PRASHAD for pilgrimage sites, fund much of this development in India.

Public–private partnership (PPP) in destination marketing joins the public sector, which owns the brand, the public goods and the long-term interest, with the private sector, which owns most of the product and the commercial know-how. Partnerships take the form of joint campaigns in which industry pays for its own advertising within the national brand; joint participation in trade fairs and roadshows, supported in India by market development assistance to service providers; co-hosted fam trips; destination funds raised from a levy on visitors or hotels; the private management of public attractions, as under the Adopt a Heritage scheme (2017), in which companies provide amenities at monuments; and governing boards of destination organisations on which both sides sit. The partnership works when roles, funding and the brand are agreed and when results are measured.