The projected destination brand personalities of European capital cities and their positioning

ABSTRACT

Capital cities are significant drivers of visitation to their countries and therefore it is important to understand how the destination brand personalities (DBP) of capital cities are projected and positioned. Hence, the aim of this research is to develop a projected DBP scale for European capital cities, and to investigate their relative positioning. Content analysis of the cities’ main tourism websites was used to develop a projected brand personality scale. This was followed by correspondence analysis to investigate the relative positioning of the city brand personalities. The DBP scale included six dimensions: excitement, malignancy, peacefulness, competence, ruggedness and conservatism. Excitement is the most strongly communicated dimension across all cities, followed by peacefulness and competence. No city rated highly on ruggedness. The correspondence analysis clusters cities into three projected DBP groups: (1) Warsaw and Moscow, (2) Athens, Rome, Madrid, and Berlin, (3) Amsterdam, Paris and Vienna.

KEYWORDS:

• Destination brand personality
• projected destination personality
• cities
• city positioning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sonya Hanna

Sonya Hanna is lecturer in Marketing at Bangor Business School. Her research interests are focused on the marketing and branding of places, in particular, the process of strategic place brand management.

Jennifer Rowley

Jennifer Rowley is Professor of Information and Communications at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research interests embrace knowledge management, innovation, entrepreneurial marketing, branding and information behaviour.