Cultural PR & Creative Destination Branding. Cultural experiences and branding case studies in Italy & Greece

It is well known that brand image is an important concept in consumer behaviour (Dobhi & Zinkhan, 1990). Keller provides this concept with the most common and widely accepted definition: “perceptions about a brand reflected as existing associations in consumer memory”. (1993: page). Like the specialized studies on the image of the brands, the image of the destination has been an area of interest in terms of tourist research in the last five decades. Why? It is important for us to have the resources to create impressions about things and these resources can be mental images, thoughts and so on. When it comes to a vacation destination, things get even more serious, because it’s also about investing some financial resources and time; in cases like these, having a mental picture of the destination we are going to visit is very important.