Imagining Places: Image Formation of Tourists and its Consequences for Destination Promotion

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Abstract
Taking as its starting point different approaches to international market communication, this paper discusses the limitations of working within a simple standardization–differentiation framework in relation to tourism promotion. It argues that tourism destinations are culture-bound products which generate associations and meanings that are influenced by the cultural background of the potential tourist. Moreover, some associations and meanings are shared by a locally delimited community whereas others are shared by a number of cultural communities. Hence a tourism destination may generate certain internationally shared meanings which can constitute a standardized platform from which a culturally differentiated market communication can take its point of departure. The advantage of this so-called glocal approach to market communication is, partly that the core elements of the image are recognizable world-wide leading potentially to a consistent and strong image, partly that the core image can be combined with additional meaning structures that are specific to the individual market's way of imagining the given tourism destination. The drawback of this approach may be that the common denominators constituting the image platform, are few and with limited signifying potential. By means of the Danish Tourist Board's national branding strategy, this paper illustrates empirically some of the possibilities as well as the difficulties involved in a glocal approach.

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