TABLE OF CONTENTS Nigel Morgan and Annette Pritchard
Introduction
A destination brand can be developed in a variety of ways, most obviously in advertising, through direct marketing, personal selling, on websites and in brochures, but also through public and media relations, and through the co-operation of destination marketing organizations (DMOs) with journalists, event organizers and film-makers. Moreover, place promotion, defined as the conscious use of publicity and marketing to communicate selective images of specific geographic localities or areas to a target audience (Gold and Ward, 1994, p. 2), not only involves advertising and publicity, but also encompasses flagship developments and spotlight events in the arts, media, leisure, heritage, retailing or sports industries (Ward, 1998).
There is now a sizeable industry-focused literature covering destination marketing issues from stakeholder involvement (e.g. Morgan et al., 2003) to marketing management (e.g. Kotler et al., 1993; Ritchie and Crouch, 2000) and destination branding (e.g. Morgan et al., 2002). It is well established that a destination is not a product (see Buhalis, 2000; Morgan and Pritchard, 2000) and, while there are significant opportunities in the imaginative and responsible application of classical marketing approaches to places, destinations cannot (and...
