The Influence of Previous Visitation on Customer's Evaluation of a Tourism Destination

The paper investigates the customer's perspective on a tourism destination brand through four proposed dimensions: awareness, image, quality and loyalty dimension. In addition to the brand's dimensions evaluation, the influence of previous visitation on each proposed dimension is presented. The evaluation of tourism destination brand Slovenia in the minds of German respondents serves as an investigated example. In addition to an evaluation for each investigated dimensions' variables for destination Slovenia as perceived by German respondents, the study confirms also the influence of previous visitation on brand evaluation. In the investigated example, previous visitation is recognized as the improvement factor in Slovenia's evaluation in the minds of German respondents.previous visitation, Slovenia

Investigating the Impact of Television Advertising and eWOM on Brand Equity Creation

Purpose – This paper investigates the impact of marketing communication tools on the brand equity creation process. Specifically, we test the impact of television advertising and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on separate dimensions of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE): brand awareness with brand image, perceived quality, brand loyalty, and brand relationships. Design/Methodology/Approach – A quantitative survey was conducted among British consumers and relationships among the proposed concepts were tested using SEM. Findings and implications – The study confirms the important role of television advertising in raising brand awareness with brand image, while eWOM was shown to significantly impact all CBBE dimensions, including its important role in brand relationship building. Limitations – In our study, the evaluation of the selected MC tools and brands was measured according to consumers’ perceptions rather than their actual behavior. Additional studies should be conducted based on real consumer behavior data or manipulated through experiments. Originality – The present study provides novel insights into the impact of MCs on the brand equity creation process in today’s interactive environment

Brand Hate Internationally: A Validation Study from Slovenia

This paper follows the call by Yadav and Chakrabarti (2022) for more research on brand hate across different countries. Empirical studies predominately used US (19 papers), UK, France (6 papers each), Italy, India and Pakistan (4 papers each) samples. This paper explores brand hate in Slovenia, a new and different cultural setting. Based on 234 consumers, our results validate the feeling of brand hate in line with previous studies, but the way it manifests is different. Comparing our results to previous studies, we find Long Term Orientation drives which antecedents is the most important one whereas Individualism drives brand hate outcomes

On the relationship between firm size, resources, age at entry and internationalization: the case of Slovenian SMEs

Export marketing and international business literature support the view that firm size–a reflection of number of employees, and sales–is positively related to export intensity and is a distinguishing factor between internationalized and non-internationalized firms. According to the resource-based view heterogeneous resource profiles that enable firms to achieve competitive advantage in international markets may be also such differentiating factors. On the other hand, as a result of the process of globalization and the increasing number of born global firms, firm age at entry into foreign markets is becoming negatively related to internationalization. Our findings just partly confirm the trends above. Using a regression model on the selected sample of 247 Slovenian small and medium enterprises, we have confirmed the hypotheses that internationalized companies are significantly larger (in terms of sales) and have more specialized resources (human, organizational, and financial resources) than non-internationalized companies. Organizational and human resources and the number of employees were positively and significantly related, while the age of companies at the start of their international activities was negatively related, to the extent of companies’ internationalization. Different implications and conclusions for researchers and entrepreneurs are derived

Startup Branding: Empirical Evidence among Slovenian Startups

Branding seems to be an important issue among all companies, also among newly established and young companies with high growth potential or so-called startups. This was also confirmed in our empirical research, conducted among 195 Slovenian startups. Startup founders/ceos see branding as the most important business strategy in their companies. Separated startup branding building blocks were evaluated as similarly important, from brand vision and context building blocks to brand development and its implementation. These findings bring important managerial implications not only for startups, but also for other companies that want to treat and maintain their brands as dynamic and evolving entities

Examining the hierarchy of destination brands and the chain of effects between brand equity dimensions

ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on the customer-based brand equity for a tourist destination, and develops a model including the dimensions of this construct (i.e. awareness, image, perceived quality and loyalty). Accordingly, loyalty is considered the main dependent variable in the model developed here. A major contribution of this paper is that it takes into account the hierarchy of destination brands and analyzes not only the chain of effects between the dimensions of brand equity for a regional destination but also the influence of the country destination image (i.e. the country is considered to be an umbrella brand) on the perceived image of one of its regional destinations. Another significant contribution is made by examining the moderating effect of country familiarity on the relationship with both types of image. The empirical evidence obtained from a sample of 253 international tourists visiting a regional destination in Spain supports the hypothesis that loyalty towards a destination is positively influenced by the perceived quality of the destination, which in turn is directly influenced by the image and awareness of that destination. Additionally, the results support the idea that perceptions of a regional destination are positively influenced by the perceptions of the country destination in which the region is located. However, a moderating effect of country familiarity on the relationship with either type of image was not supported in this research. This could be because in a country where there are a lot of destination brands, being more familiar with the country does not necessarily imply a more accurate knowledge of its regional destinations

Assessing destination image: an online marketing approach and the case of Tripadvisor

Destination image is a popular research domain in the tourism literature. Yet, limited studies focus on destination image as reflected through actual tourists’ evaluations and reviews on social media. Taken the significance of social media and the relationship between country and destination image, the study embarks upon to assess the cognitive, affective, conative image components. The study presents the destination image concept from the tourists’ point of view, as they review Istanbul on TripAdvisor throughout the summer in 2013. This study, although limited in scope, will be of interest to academic researchers and industry practitioners who are seeking to better understand the behavior of travelers using the Internet

The influence of community factors on the engagement of residents in place promotion: Empirical evidence from an Italian heritage site

The engagement of community residents in place promotion is increasingly recognized as desirable for ensuring effective and reliable communication with tourists. The study investigated the effects of community factors on residents' engagement in the promotion of an Italian heritage site. Community commitment, environmental attitudes, and perceptions of the effectiveness of existing place marketing communications were found to be decisive in influencing residents' engagement in the promotion of the Amalfi Coast. The paper helps to shed light on collaboration in place promotion, thus enriching the debate on the ambassadorship role of residents and suggesting useful insights for policy makers/destination management organization

Mutant TP53 switches therapeutic vulnerability during gastric cancer progression within interleukin-6 family cytokines

Although aberrant activation of the KRAS and PI3K pathway alongside TP53 mutations account for frequent aberrations in human gastric cancers, neither the sequence nor the individual contributions of these mutations have been clarified. Here, we establish an allelic series of mice to afford conditional expression in the glandular epithelium of Kras G12D;Pik3ca H1047R or Trp53 R172H and/or ablation of Pten or Trp53. We find that Kras G12D;Pik3ca H1047R is sufficient to induce adenomas and that lesions progress to carcinoma when also harboring Pten deletions. An additional challenge with either Trp53 loss- or gain-of-function alleles further accelerated tumor progression and triggered metastatic disease. While tumor-intrinsic STAT3 signaling in response to gp130 family cytokines remained as a gatekeeper for all stages of tumor development, metastatic progression required a mutant Trp53-induced interleukin (IL)-11 to IL-6 dependency switch. Consistent with the poorer survival of patients with high IL-6 expression, we identify IL-6/STAT3 signaling as a therapeutic vulnerability for TP53-mutant gastric cancer. </p

The role of brand elements in destination branding

This article evaluates the contribution of commonly used symbolic elements, namely destination name, logo and tagline to the establishment of the destination brand. The conceptual framework is developed combining suggestions on the role and significance of symbolic brand elements for commercial brands with the literature on destination and place branding and draws particularly on the recent identity-based approach to place brands. The article reports on field research that operationalized the theoretical framework to examine the perceptions of visitors to Greece. Although the name is clearly more influential, the overall contribution of the symbolic elements to the brand is proven to be limited. This implies that destinations need to prioritize other aspects of the branding effort. Keywords: Destination branding, Place brands, Destination identity, Name, Tagline, Log