Chapter 1 TOURISM BRANDING A Community Affair

Abstract

Academic inquiries have predominantly treated destination branding as a marketing phenomenon that happens to involve tourists as customers in a marketplace. The practice of it has been entrenched in deploying tactical marketing tools such as attention-grabbing slogans. This opening chapter provides a critical review of destination and place branding literature, as well as a synopsis of each of the 15 chapters assembled in this state-of-the-art collection. Considering tourism branding as a community affair, this volume is distinguished from previous publications by adopting a global and more multidisciplinary approach and by placing the subject of tourism branding outside of the conventional domains of marketing and destination. By having the host community at the central stage, many chapters explicitly consider different stakeholders in the process of branding. Built on theoretical foundations with both empirical findings and practical cases, this book brings together different perspectives and offers an intellectual and open dialogue among academics and practitioners of the field.

Citation

Cai, L.A., Gartner, W.C. and María Munar, A. (2009), "Chapter 1 TOURISM BRANDING A Community Affair", Cai, L.A., Gartner, W.C. and María Munar, A. (Ed.) Tourism Branding: Communities in Action (Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice, Vol. 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2042-1443(2009)0000001003