The projected destination brand personalities of European capital cities and their positioning

Hanna, Sonya and Rowley, Jennifer ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3437-6914 (2019) The projected destination brand personalities of European capital cities and their positioning. Journal of Marketing Management, 35 (11-12). pp. 1135-1158. ISSN 0267-257X

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Abstract

Capital cities are significant drivers of visitation to their countries and therefore it is important to understand how the destination brand personalities (DBP) of capital cities are projected and positioned. Hence, the aim of this research is to develop a projected DBP scale for European capital cities, and to investigate their relative positioning. Content analysis of the cities’ main tourism websites was used to develop a projected brand personality scale. This was followed by correspondence analysis to investigate the relative positioning of the city brand personalities. The DBP scale included six dimensions: excitement, malignancy, peacefulness, competence, ruggedness and conservatism. Excitement is the most strongly communicated dimension across all cities, followed by peacefulness and competence. No city rated highly on ruggedness. The correspondence analysis clusters cities into three projected DBP groups: (1) Warsaw and Moscow, (2) Athens, Rome, Madrid, and Berlin, (3) Amsterdam, Paris and Vienna.