Friday, 29 March 2019: 10:30 AM
Most of the countries in today's world are trying to develop international and domestic tourism as a source of economic benefit for the country. In order to become an economically effective and sustainable destination, the destination first needs to attract potential tourists by creating awareness. Each destination should be promoted via powerful branding that mirrors experiences and new tourism opportunities that reflect the beauties the destination offers. The strength of destination branding lies in its historical, natural, cultural, and social value. These different aspects create the core of what a tourist wants to experience; an adventure. With growing globalization, more and more countries highlight the importance of brand power and realize the connection to increasing competitiveness of a destination. However, due to diverse criteria, it is not easy to increase awareness of the destination brand to tourists. It requires an emotional relationship between the destination and the tourist to influence perception and further decision-making regarding visiting a destination. From the economic point of view, competitive destinations should have attractive destination branding in order to attract more investors, increase tourism, and improve living conditions in terms of employment and availability of products and services. The purpose of this research is to investigate the essence of destination branding, its strength in creating an economically competitive destination and to test whether destination branding of the Czech Republic works in practice as an effective economic tool for increasing the number of tourists and awareness of the country. The research was conducted via an email survey. A pilot version of the questionnaire with 17 research questions was sent to a representative sample of 100 respondents consisting of foreign tourists from different continents including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America who have visited the Czech Republic at least once. Final response rate was 62%. Several main conclusions came out of the pilot testing. Surprisingly, branding of the Czech Republic as the “Land of Stories” was unfamiliar to half of the respondents. They relied mostly on the Internet, reviews, and word of mouth as the source of their knowledge. No logos or promotions were perceived as a potential source of attracting tourists and creating enthusiasm about visiting the country. In order to increase tourism, modern social media tools, reviews, best practices, and positive experience should be emphasized.