Connecting Brand Identity and Consumer-Based Brand Equity for Tourism Destinations : A Structural Model of Leisure Visitors’ Destination Brand Associations

The study proposes and empirically validates an integrated model of leisure visitors'' destination brand associations that can guide destination marketing and branding activities for both, the brand identity and the consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) perspective. A ten-phase empirical research design is established and data is collected from a sample of German leisure visitors to the Balearic Island of Mallorca, Spain. Structural equation modeling (SEM) provides empirical evidence of construct validity and reveals strong support for the validity of the proposed structural theory of leisure visitors'' destination brand associations. Results also demonstrate that the structural model possesses excellent levels of predictive power and validity. Importantly, the model performs very well in the overall prediction of consumers'' destination brand attitudes and loyalty.