Consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) in the context of an international stopover destination: Perceptions of Dubai in France and Australia
Introduction
Measurement of the perceptions of destinations has been a popular theme within the tourism literature since the first studies were published in the early 1970s (see for example Anderssen & Colberg, 1973; Gearing, Swart, & Var, 1974) through the 1980s and 1990s (see for example Phelps, 1986; Selby & Morgan, 1996; Uysal, Chen, & Williams, 2000; Yau & Chan, 1990), to the current period (see for example Marine-Roig & Ferrer-Rosell, 2018). This is not surprising given the prominent role destinations play within the tourism system with most tourism activities taking place at destinations (see Leiper, 1979). Given the intangible nature of tourism services provided at destinations, it has long been recognised that consumers' perceptions can be as influential in travel decision making as a destination's tangible features (see Chon, 1990; Hunt, 1975; Ritchie & Crouch, 2003).
While measuring destination image has been the most popular theme within the destination marketing literature (Pike & Page, 2014), the model of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) only emerged in the past decade, as a means to assess destination attractiveness. Conceptually, CBBE goes beyond measuring destination image, by exploring the relationship between consumers’ perceptions of a destination and their attitudinal loyalty as the dependent variable. A key practical implication of the CBBE model is the potential to assess the effectiveness of past marketing communications, as well as provide indicators of possible future performance (Aaker, 1996). A small but growing number of destination CBBE studies has been reported since the first was published by Konečnic (2006). For lists of these studies see Pike (2016, p. 326) and Tasci (2018). This study aims to contribute to the destination marketing literature by testing CBBE theory in the context of a stopover destination for long haul international air travellers. No previous study in this travel context has been reported in the first 12 years of destination CBBE research. The findings will add to the debate around which latent variables are positively related to the dependent variable in the destination CBBE model.
The destination of interest in this study is Dubai, which emerged relatively recently as a major stopover destination during air travel between UK/Europe and Australia/South Pacific, to rival the traditional destinations of Singapore and Hong Kong. One of seven emirates comprising the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Dubai is located on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, adjacent to Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar. This location has enabled Dubai to serve as a major hub for airline Emirates to operate direct services to most major European airports as well as direct flights to cities in Australia and New Zealand, and therefore as a stopover destination option during travel between UK/Europe and Australia/South Pacific. In 2008 Dubai opened the world's largest airport terminal, for exclusive use by Emirates, which lifted the airport's capacity to 60 million passengers per year. By 2013, Dubai International Airport had become the third busiest in the world after London and Paris (Kotsi & Michael, 2015).
The purpose of this study is to report the first modelling of CBBE in the context of a stopover destination during long haul international air travel. The Dubai stopover destination CBBE model is tested with consumers in two geographically distant markets in opposite hemispheres; France and Australia.
Section snippets
Literature review
The perceived attractiveness of a place, in the minds of travellers, is as important as the destination's tangible features (Hunt, 1975; Stylidis, Shani, & Belhassen, 2017), since perception is reality (Thomas & Thomas 1928, in Patton, 2002). That is, what a consumer believes to be true will guide their decision making, regardless of whether those perceptions are accurate or not. Destination attractiveness is therefore one of the key antecedents of destination competitiveness (Ritchie & Crouch,
Methodology
Members of a commercial marketing research panel in France and Australia were invited by email to participate in separate online surveys during September 2017. A quota of 600 adults was sought from each country. The requirements were that participants needed to be over 18, and had either flown long haul internationally or intended to do so in the future. An even split of males and females was requested. Separate online URLs were used for the two surveys. The Australian questionnaire was
Results
Within four days of the launch of the surveys a total of 591 completions was achieved in Australia, along with 600 in France. Of these there were 403 useable responses from Australia and 365 from France. This was due to many invalid responses to questions about previous travel, future travel intent, stopover intent, and in the questions related to unaided preferred stopover destinations. Therefore, listwise deletion was used to cleanse the two data sets. The mean likelihood of travelling to
Discussion and implications
This study tested a model of CBBE, in the context of an international stopover destination, in two geographically disparate markets. There has been limited research into the relationship between consumers’ perceptions (cognition) of a destination and their likelihood of visiting (conation). The theory of CBBE has been shown to be useful for modelling this, and since 2006 there has been a growing number of destination CBBE applications, based on a hierarchy of components proposed by Aaker (1991,
Filareti Kotsi
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Secured the grant funding for the project
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Negotiated the online panel samples in the France and Australia
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Translated the survey into the French language
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Contributed to the research design and questionnaire design
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Contributed to the construction of the manuscript
Steven Pike
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Undertook the data analysis
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Contributed to the research design and questionnaire design
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Contributed to the construction of the manuscript
Udo Gottlieb
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Undertook the data analysis
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Contributed to the construction of the manuscript
Acknowledgement
This research was funded by Zayed University Cluster Research Grant R16082 ‘Stopover destination image attractiveness’.
Filareti Kotsi is Associate Professor at the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University, Dubai, UAE. She teaches courses related to tourism, heritage and culture in the undergraduate and graduate specialization of Tourism and Cultural Communications. Her work is published in various journals such as Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, Journal of Destination Marketing and Management, and Tourism Management Perspectives.
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Filareti Kotsi is Associate Professor at the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University, Dubai, UAE. She teaches courses related to tourism, heritage and culture in the undergraduate and graduate specialization of Tourism and Cultural Communications. Her work is published in various journals such as Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, Journal of Destination Marketing and Management, and Tourism Management Perspectives.
Steven Pike is Associate Professor of Marketing at Queensland University of Technology. Prior to becoming an academic Steven spent 20 years working in the tourism industry, primarily with destination marketing organisations. Steven has published five books related to tourism marketing.
Udo Gottlieb, PhD is a Lecturer in Marketing at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Udo draws on over a decade's worth of international consulting experience across 4 continents. His current research provides organisations with strategies to improve their effectiveness when interacting with clients. His work has been published in scholarly journals including the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education and Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, among others.