By Peter Semone
My colleague Professor Metin Kozak of Mugla University in Turkey and I have recently published a paper on tourism destination branding. We have used the Mekong Sub-regional marketing effort as an example of best practice.
The result of multiple stakeholder consultation was the innovative brand Explore
Mekong, which depicts the ‘last tourism frontier’ nature of the destination.
The abstract reads:
In early 2008, the Bangkok-based Mekong Tourism Office (MTO) led a noteworthy regional tourism brand development exercise, the objective of which was to create a more recognizable identity for the Greater Mekong Sub-region’s (GMS) burgeoning hospitality and tourism industry. This paper provides a synopsis of the stakeholder-inclusive approach taken by the MTO to develop a tourism logo and slogan for the GMS. The branding exercise was part of a larger marketing plan for the sub-region and applied a very practical methodology. In total, the Mekong Tourism brand development was conducted in five phases, each of which is described in this paper along with any relevant and pertinent lessons learned. The paper begins with a section that describes the institutional role of the MTO, which provides the reader with the necessary context to understand how and why the branding exercise was undertaken in the first place. The paper ends with a summary of implications for the practical implementation of the study findings.
To download a copy of this Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research article from Taylor and Francis click here