Assessing validity of consumer-based brand equity models for tourism destinations

Tourism destinations are becoming increasingly aware of the value the destination has as a brand (Bianchi, Pike and Lings 2014; Kim, Schuckert and Elliot 2017; Tasci et al., 2016). Similar to goods and service brands, destination brands recognize the value in understanding how to develop strong brands and the importance of brand equity (Nam, Ekinci and Whyatt, 2011). The purpose of the study is to test validity of the two prominent Consumer Based Brand Equity (CBBE) Models introduced by Aaker (1991) and Çifci et al. (2016) in a tourism domain. Using a UK and Indonesian sample, we compared the external validity of the brand equity models in different cultural settings.

This study makes two key contributions. First, we assess the validity of Aaker’s (1991) CBBE with tourism destinations. Second, we further examined validity of Cifci et al.’s (2016) brand equity model in tourism domain. Hence, we contributed to the branding literature by advancing our knowledge of the relationship between brand awareness, brand satisfaction and brand loyalty for destinations. Brand satisfaction is identified with brand loyalty and an important component of brand equity.