Branding Sri Lanka: Insights and Practices

Abstract

As competition for inward investment, residents, and revenue from tourism has rapidly increased, the application of marketing techniques to places has also increased. Although branding is not a new concept, the study of destination branding is a relatively recent addition to the field of tourism research (Ricardo, 2009). In a world of over six billion people living in 191 independent states, competing with other nations in creating, developing, and maintaining a strategic brand for a nation to differentiate themselves from their competitive destinations has become more important and challenging than ever (Laksiri & Falkenburg, 2009). Appearance of several studies relating destination branding to other constructs such as tourist behavior, tourist satisfaction, foreign direct investment, and destination competitiveness shows a general agreement among academics and practitioners that places can be branded in the same way as consumer goods and services. Branding also helps to harness the place's cultural, social, natural, and economic strengths (Gnoth, 2008). As a result, destination branding is becoming an element in developing various models of travel decision making, destination marketing, and destination management. There is no disagreement regarding the recent history of terrorism and its negative effect on tourism in Sri Lanka. Soon after 30 years of terrorism, Sri Lanka faces several challenges to position the destination in an increasingly competitive global marketplace, to create a unique identity to differentiate itself from competitors. This differentiation and positioning task has become more critical than ever to help the visitor include Sri Lanka in his selection list and choose from the many recreational choices. Thus destination branding will become a strategic marketing component with considerable importance in promoting the (re)discovery of the island severely impacted by war, ethnic, and/or political conflict. In an attempt to provide further clarity, this article provides a theoretical review of branding, delivers the results of an empirical study that examined how international tourists perceive Sri Lanka and takes a closer look at branding strategy of the destination. The paper is structured as follows. The first section discusses the theoretical review of destination branding. The second section looks at the empirical survey results, and how they link to branding. In last three sections destination branding strategies of Sri Lanka, a discussion, and conclusions will be presented.