What I say about myself vs. what others say about me: Destination brand personality of South Korea

Soyeon Kim, Purdue University

Abstract

With the proliferation of products and brands in the marketplace, brand personality has emerged as an important means of brand differentiation and increased consumer preference. However, little attention has been given to the application of brand personality to tourism destinations. The present study addresses this paucity of academic scrutiny examining the concept of destination personality and the relationship between the perceived and projected destination brand personalities of South Korea. The projected destination personality is obtained through analyzing the contents of the official Korean tourism website, while the perceived destination personality is obtained from a survey conducted among a sample of U.S. travelers. For the projected destination personality, content analyses of textual and pictorial information on the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) website revealed that South Korea communicates strong destination personality in terms of excitement, sincerity, and to some extent competence. In that sense, the KTO website appeared to fairly effectively deliver the personalities consistent with their brand identity, which translated to “Korea, Sparkling” through effective use of contents. Regarding the perceived destination personality, this study identified seven underlying personality dimensions: ‘excitement’, ‘competence’, ‘sincerity’, ‘ruggedness’, ‘sophistication’, ‘uniqueness’, and ‘family-orientation’. ‘Sincerity’, ‘family-orientation’ and ‘competence’ were viewed as the most important and prevalent dimensions explaining perceptions toward South Korea. Some differences were noted between the projected and the perceived destination personalities of South Korea. The dissimilarities indicated a level of incongruence in South Korea’s destination personality. Moreover, the influence of respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics and level of familiarity on the different components of destination personality has been analyzed. Results indicate that different segments had different views of South Korea. In particular, respondents who are more familiar with South Korea tend to have significantly stronger or positive perceptions. Subsequent regression analyses indicated that sophistication and excitement factors significantly contribute to accounting for U.S. consumers’ overall impression of South Korea and their intention to visit the destination. Based on the findings, various suggestions provide guidance to help Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) to launch effective branding strategies to increase future tourist demand and to integrate destination brand personality into strategic brand management.

Degree

M.S.

Advisors

Lehto, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Marketing|Management

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