Executing a destination branding strategy: Louisville Tourism’s Urban Bourbon Trail

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to add new insights into the discussion of how a city’s destination marketing organization (DMO) can apply operant resources to act upon its operant resources to create, market and manage a unique brand over time.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses an abductive approach to advance understanding of how to execute a branding strategy that evolves over time while strategically curating its unique and valued resources. This understanding is based on an in-depth review of Louisville’s branding journey, including written documents and interviews with people involved in building the branding strategy.

Findings

This paper presents a model to help destinations focus on how to create, market and manage the delivery of a branded ecosystem that capitalizes on its resources. The study adds new insights into how DMOs can curate a destination’s resources into an ecosystem that delivers its brand promise over time.

Originality/value

The study introduces the idea of ecotopes to expand an understanding of tourism ecosystems, it presents the concept of a customer journey to depict a destination’s branding strategy, incorporates Barney’s Resource Based Theory (Barney & Clark, 2007) into the process of creating a destination’s brand and applies Barnard’s (1938) classic Acceptance Theory of Authority to explain how DMOs can execute a destination’s branding strategy.

Citation

Ford, R.C., Bowen, J.T. and Yates, S. (2023), "Executing a destination branding strategy: Louisville Tourism’s Urban Bourbon Trail", International Journal of Tourism Cities, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 128-142. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJTC-03-2022-0059