Regional Brand in Slovak Tourism

Abstract

After almost 20 years of the independent Slovak Republic existence in the midst of a turbulent changing Europe, the country perceives brands as a tool for expressing the company’s given ability, its rapid recognition or creating a priori positive connotations associated with this extreme. Tourism brands are currently the result of cluster initiatives, support for the local economy at all levels of the national economy. The aim of the paper is to identify tourism brands, to evaluate awareness of the “Certified Rural Accommodation” brand and to point out the importance of a regional brand perceived as a guarantee of the tourism accommodation services quality that owes the creation and establishment of the market to regional public or private sector actors. The brand value was examined by both the customer and the provider. The basic research set of customer awareness research was 174 respondents addressed by an electronic questionnaire. Provisioning of brand value from the perspective of the provider was carried out for the actors representing the public and private sectors at regional and local level. The research results indicate that the brand awareness of the customer is below average, for various reasons; low promotion. Awareness is assessed by the provider as above average; a growing number of certified accommodation facilities. By predicting the basic economic indicator in tourism by 2020 using the correlation analysis with one dependent variable, the authors of the paper have pointed out the importance of establishing the tourism brand in the market.