Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Destination Marketing, Images, and Stereotypes
“Destination promotion” has many different definitions in literature; a summary of
most of these can be found in Short et al. (2000), who declare that “Destination
promotion involves the re-evaluation and re-presentation of destination to create
and market a new image for localities to enhance their competitive position in
attracting or retaining resources” (p. 318). This definition emphasizes the re-
presentation of destination in order to create and market a new image geared to
compete over the retaining and attracting of various resources. Nielsen’s (2001)
definition of destination promotion is similar, but he stresses the difficulty of
achieving the task, especially when dealing with an image-related crisis: “promot-
ing a destination in normal circumstances is a difficult task, but promoting a des-
tination that faces tourism challenges—whether from negative press, or from
infrastructure damage caused by natural disasters or man-made disasters—is an
altogether more arduous task” (pp. 207–208).
Destination marketing attempts to improve the images and public perceptions of
destinations. Kotler et al. (1993) define the image of a destination as “the sum of
beliefs, ideals, and impressions people have toward a certain destination.” They
argue that an image represents a simplification of many associations and assorted
information related to a place, and is a cognitive product of the attempt to process
large amounts of information.
Many different factors influence a destination’s image or perception among
tourists. Among these are the characteristics of the destination’s population, its status
or political power, the population size, its crime rate, the numbers and types of tourist
attractions, the numbers and character of national institutions located there, its loca-
tion and historical background, movies and television series that have been filmed on
location at the destination, its media coverage, atmosphere, entertainment options,
tourist or cultural value, and physical appearance (Avraham, 2002; 2003b; 2003a).
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Various methods may be used in order to evaluate a destination’s image among spe-
cific target populations, but the most popular of these are attitude surveys, question-
naires, focus groups, and in-depth interviews (Fenster et al., 1994).
Kotler et al. (1993) argue that a destination’s image can be positive and attrac-
tive, negative, weak (as in the case of peripheral locations that are not well known),
mixed (when the image includes both positive and negative elements), or contra-
dictory (when the city has a favorable image among a certain population and a neg-
ative image among another population). In addition, destination images can be
classified as “rich images” or “poor images”; some destinations have a rich
image—that is, a great deal is known about them, usually from a variety of sources
as well as from personal visits and knowledge; other destinations have a poor
image—very little is known about them, and what is known usually comes from a
single source of information (Elizur, 1986).