Tracking brand positioning for an emerging destination: 2003 to 2015

Introduction

Since the 1990s, branding has become a pillar in the marketing strategy of destination marketing organisations (DMOs). Given the increasing range of destinations available to a consumer for almost any given travel situation, branding is being used by marketers as a structured process for enhancing differentiation in the market place and for rallying stakeholders. Although the benefit of branding as a market differentiation agent has been recognised in the literature since at least the 1940s (see, for example, Guest, 1942), the topic of destination branding did not emerge as an academic field for another 50 years. Since the first destination branding journal articles appeared in the late 1990s, studies have addressed a range of issues relating to brand development, implementation and performance measurement. However, to date, there has been little research reported about investigations of destination branding performance monitoring over time.

The catalyst for this project was the launch of a new brand for an emerging regional destination in the state of Queensland, Australia in 2003. The state’s 14 regional tourism organisations (RTO) are more fortunate than most of their counterparts around the world in that Tourism & Events Queensland, their state tourism organisation (STO), has provided major financial support annually in the development and implementation of RTO branding. The RTO region of interest in this case was in 2003 newly branded as Bundaberg, Coral Coast and country, which represents an area of 26,000 km², including a lengthy coastline marking the starting point of the iconic Great Barrier Reef and a large sparsely populated rural hinterland. Politically, the RTO jurisdiction includes Bundaberg (population 45,000), which is the largest city, and at the start of this project, a further 11 smaller local government areas. These 12 local governments have since been amalgamated into two, Bundaberg Shire and North Burnett Shire, with the RTO brand name changing to Bundaberg North Burnett. The southern boundary of the region is approximately 350 km north of Brisbane, the state capital.

With a population of approximately two million, Brisbane is the largest source of visitor arrivals for all Queensland RTOs and is the single most important geographic market for Bundaberg North Burnett. During 2002, a series of focus groups with Brisbane residents found this emerging tourism region lacked a clear identity as a holiday destination (Tourism Queensland, 2003). Three key barriers to visiting the region were identified as: (1) the perception, there was nothing to do there; (2) the long driving distance and (3) a lack of nightlife, eateries and shopping. To address these perceptions, a new brand campaign was developed for the region by the STO and RTO, which was launched in February 2003 with three objectives:

To raise awareness of the destination;

The new brand positioning theme was Take time to visit Bundaberg, Coral Coast and Country, which

suggests that the region holds more than the consumer expects to find… in trying to sell the whole region, this line promises a diverse holiday destination…through the use of words such as ‘take time’ and ‘discover’ there is also the promise of a relaxing, languid stay… a holiday where you run time, not vice versa. (Tourism Queensland, 2003)

The aim of this research project, undertaken independent of the RTO and STO, was to first identify the destination’s baseline market position, benchmarked against four key competing regions; in 2003, after two months of the campaign, and then to monitor branding performance over time. The competing RTO destinations are the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Fraser Coast and Northern New South Wales. To this end, research has been undertaken in 2003, 2007 and 2012. The purpose of this manuscript is to report the findings of a fourth study undertaken in 2015. The study is underpinned by the hierarchy of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). CBBE offers a practical approach for measuring destination branding performance, with the key constructs of brand salience, brand image and brand resonance corresponding to the RTO’s three objectives listed above.

Literature review

It has long been recognised that in increasingly competitive global markets, where so many categories are saturated with a seemingly endless number of products offering similar features, branding has emerged as a key strategic means for achieving and enhancing differentiation (see, for example, Gardner and Levy, 1955). The aim of branding is to establish and hold a differentiated market position that demonstrates an advantage over competitors (Aaker, 1996). With this in mind, marketing is regarded as an investment in the development of consumers’ associations of the brand (Keller, 2000). That is to say branding is at the core of marketing strategy, and the purpose of all promotion should be to develop favourable brand associations. A well-defined brand identity guides the DMO and stakeholders on what should be communicated in all promotional activity. In a tourism context, the aim is to link destination attributes to consumer wants (Pike and Page, 2014). While this is representative of a marketing orientation, where all decisions are made with the consumer in mind (Kotler et al., 2007), it has been argued that the tourism industry was slow to evolve to this stage from a purely promotional orientation (see, for example, Medlik and Middleton, 1973). This might help explain that while branding as a market differentiation strategy featured in the wider academic literature in the 1940s, it did not attract interest from destination marketing researchers for another 50 years. Both the practice and study of destination branding are relatively new.

The first destination branding conference track was held in 1997 (Gnoth, 1998), the first journal articles appeared in 1998 (see Dosen et al., 1998; Pritchard and Morgan, 1998), the first book was published in 2002 (see Morgan et al., 2002) and the first dedicated academic conference was convened in Macau in 2005. Since the first destination branding studies were published, there has been a growing interest in the topic. A review of 74 destination branding publications between 1998 and 2007 (see Pike, 2009) highlighted how a multitude of issues relating to brand development, implementation and performance measurement had been addressed. However, there has to date been little reported in relation to monitoring destination brand positioning over time.

Methodology

The 2003 and 2007 studies involved paper-based questionnaires mailed to Brisbane households, randomly selected from the telephone directory white pages, during autumn. The 2012 and 2015 studies were also administered in autumn but involved online surveys. The 2015 questionnaire was based on the CBBE scale items used in the previous studies, with the addition of small section of exploratory questions related to participants’ engagement with social media and use of social media in travel planning. The first page of the survey was used to investigate short break holiday importance and frequency. Participants were then asked to name the first destination that came to mind when considering their next short break by car, and then to list the names of any other destinations they would probably also consider. The purpose was to identify the unaided top of mind preferred destination and other salient destinations that form the evoked decision set. The next page asked participants to rate the importance of a battery of 22 cognitive attributes of short break destinations, using a 7-point scale. The names of the destinations of interest had not been mentioned at this point. These attributes were selected from a combination of literature review and personal interviews with Brisbane residents. To measure destination brand image, separate pages were used for each of the five destinations, where participants were asked to indicate their perceptions of performance for the same 22 attributes. Destination brand resonance was measured by intent to visit in the future, and the likelihood of recommending the destination to friends, using 7-point scales. The section related to social media was exploratory in nature and contained questions about participants’ social media use and online engagement with destinations. The social media questions were developed from research in this area by Lee and Ma (2015) and Li et al. (2015). Participants were recruited using two methods. First, resources permitted sourcing 100 members of a marketing research firm’s consumer research panel. Second, Facebook friends of one of the researchers were invited to participate and/or share the survey link on their own network. This resulted in an additional 58 useable responses.

Data analysis

In Table 1, the demographic characteristics of participants in 2015 (n = 158) are summarised in comparison to the 2003 (n = 521), 2007 (n = 444) and 2012 (n = 541) samples. While the 2015 sample is smaller in size (this was a lengthy survey involving 197 items), the characteristics of the groups are generally similar. Almost all participants (95%) indicated intent to take a short break by car within the following three months, demonstrating their familiarity with the survey topic. Participants indicated taking a mean of 2.5 short breaks by car per year, which was consistent with the 3 such trips for the 2003 and 2007 samples and 2.5 in 2012.

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Table 1.

Characteristics of participants.

	2015 Valid (%)	2012 Valid (%)	2007 Valid (%)	2003 Valid (%)
Gender
Male	43.0	57.9	38.1	38.0
Female	57.0	42.1	61.9	62.0
Age
18–24	10.8	3.3	3.6	3.1
25–44	44.9	32.3	37.5	40.6
45–64	31.0	35.1	46.3	46.7
65+	13.3	29.2	12.6	9.6
Annual household income
Less than $78,000	49.4	62.8	56.1	73.2
$78,000 or more	50.6	37.2	43.9	26.8
Marital status
Single	17.1	17.7	11.3	10.9
Married/permanent partner	67.1	68.2	75.6	75.5
Separated, divorced, widowed	15.8	14.0	13.1	13.4
Number of dependent children
0	54.4	72.8	53.5	54.1
1–2	39.2	22.9	36.6	35.7
3+ Total	6.3	4.9	9.9	10.7
Highest level of education
High school	19.6	34.0	33.5	40.6
TAFE	24.1	26.1	22.7	23.7
University Graduate	52.5	34.4	33.0	31.5
Other	3.8	5.5	10.8	4.2

Destination brand salience

In Table 2, the unaided top of mind preferred destinations are grouped into RTO boundaries, where it can be seen that for 41% of participants, the Sunshine Coast was the preferred destination. Destination preferences have been consistent across the four samples and indicate no marked improvement in destination brand salience for Bundaberg North Burnett between 2003 and 2015. The mean evoked decision set size was 2.5 destinations, in comparison to 4 in 2003, and 3.1 in 2007 and 2.5 in 2012; all within the theorised range of 4 ± 2. Bundaberg North Burnett destinations were listed in 8% of the 2015 participants’ evoked decision sets, compared to 4% in 2012, 6% in 2007 and 11% in 2003. Bear in mind the percentages represent small numbers of participants.

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Table 2.

Unaided preferred destination.

	2015 (%)	2012 (%)	2007 (%)	2003 (%)
Sunshine Coast	41.0	32.2	46.0	45.1
Gold Coast	25.0	20.3	16.4	18.8
Northern NSW	14.7	12.0	14.5	11.1
Southern QLD Country	5.1	n/a	4.7	3.9
Bundaberg North Burnett	3.8	1.8	1.4	2.1
Fraser Coast	1.3	4.6	5.5	6.4
Other	9.0	29.0	11.6	12.6

n/a: not applicable.

Destination brand image

In Table 3, the attribute importance means are listed in 2015 rank order. The Cronbach’s alpha for the 22 items was .90, indicating internal consistency. The reliability of the survey instrument can be seen in the consistency of attribute rankings over the four different samples during the 12-year period. The means for only two items were consistently below the scale midpoint.

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Table 3.

Attribute importance.

	2015 Rank	2015 Mean	2012 Rank	2012 Mean	2007 Rank	2007 Mean	2003 Rank	2003 Mean
Suitable accommodation	1	6.2	1	6.0	1	6.2	3	5.9
Good value for money	2	6.1	2	6.0	2	6.1	1	6.0
Safe place	3	5.9	3	6.0	3	6.1	2	6.0
Beautiful scenery	4	5.8	4	5.5	4	5.4	5	5.6
Good climate	5	5.7	5	5.5	6	5.3	4	5.8
Good cafes / restaurants	6	5.6	6	5.2	9	5.1	10	5.0
Comfortable drive	7	5.2	7	5.2	7	5.2	6	5.4
Lots to see and do	8	5.2	9	5.1	11	4.9	12	4.8
Affordable packages	9	5.2	8	5.3	5	5.4	15	4.3
Good beaches	10	5.1	12	4.7	12	4.8	8	5.3
Friendly locals	11	5.1	10	5.1	10	5.0	11	5.0
High levels of service	12	5.0	13	4.7	13	4.7	7	5.4
Uncrowded	13	5.0	11	5.0	8	5.2	9	5.2
Places for swimming	14	4.6	14	4.5	14	4.7	13	4.7
Not touristy	15	4.5	15	4.3	15	4.4	14	4.6
Walking tracks	16	4.5	16	4.1	16	4.3	17	4.1
Shopping	17	4.3	17	4.1	18	3.9	16	4.2
Family destination	18	4.1	18	4.1	17	4.3	18	3.2
Historical places	19	4.1	19	4.0	19	3.9	n/a	n/a
Marine life	20	4.2	20	3.9	20	3.9	n/a	n/a
Trendy atmosphere	21	3.9	21	3.2	22	3.0	n/a	n/a
Water sports	22	3.5	22	3.2	21	3.1	n/a	n/a

n/a: not applicable.

In Table 4, the 2015 means for perceived destination performance across the same list of attributes are compared to the means for attribute importance. Interestingly, the means for each destination were lower than the means for the two most important attributes. Bundaberg North Burnett’s ranking on each attribute is shown in brackets. These data provide an indication of Bundaberg and North Burnett’s position relative to competing regions. For example, while the results were generally positive in that the means for all but two items were above the scale midpoint, the destination ranked first on only one item, second on four items, third on three items, fourth on five items and fifth on nine items.

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Table 4.

2015 destination performance.

	Rank	Importance	Sunshine Coast	Gold Coast	Northern NSW	Fraser Coast	Bundaberg
Suitable accommodation	1	6.2	5.9	5.5	5.4	5.2	5.1 (5)
Good value for money	2	6.1	5.5	4.7	5.2	5.2	5.2 (2)
A safe place	3	5.9	5.9	4.3	5.3	5.6	5.5 (3)
Beautiful scenery	4	5.8	6.1	5.4	5.9	5.8	5.7 (4)
Good climate	5	5.7	6.1	5.8	5.7	5.8	5.7 (4)
Good cafes / restaurants	6	5.6	5.6	5.4	5.4	4.6	4.5 (5)
Comfortable drive	7	5.2	6.0	6.0	5.1	4.2	3.5 (5)
Lots to see and do	8	5.2	5.5	5.3	5.3	5.1	4.9 (5)
Affordable packages	9	5.2	5.1	4.7	4.8	4.9	5.0 (2)
Good beaches	10	5.1	6.1	5.8	5.8	5.5	5.1 (5)
Friendly locals	11	5.1	5.2	4.1	5.0	5.2	5.0 (3)
High levels of service	12	5.0	5.6	5.2	5.0	4.7	4.5 (5)
Uncrowded	13	5.0	4.7	3.2	4.7	5.1	5.0 (1)
Places for swimming	14	4.6	6.1	5.7	5.6	5.5	5.2 (4)
Not touristy	15	4.5	4.2	2.4	4.0	4.5	4.6 (4)
Walking tracks	16	4.5	5.3	4.5	5.2	5.2	4.9 (4)
Shopping	17	4.3	5.2	5.5	4.5	3.8	4.0 (4)
Family destination	18	4.1	5.7	5.3	5.1	5.3	5.2 (4)
Historical places	19	4.1	4.2	3.4	4.2	4.4	4.3 (2)
Marine life	20	4.2	5.3	5.0	4.9	5.2	5.1 (3)
Trendy atmosphere	21	3.9	5.2	5.0	5.1	3.7	3.5 (5)
Water sports	22	3.5	5.5	5.5	5.0	5.0	4.8 (5)

In Table 5, the 2015 destination performance means and rankings for Bundaberg North Burnett are compared to 2012, 2007 and 2003. Again, there is a consistency of results across the four samples. In terms of a comparison between 2015 and the original baseline 2003 study, the results are almost identical with no noticeable improvement or decline for the destination’s ranking on each attribute. These data support the proposition that positive destination image change will only take place over a long period of time. This does not necessarily suggest the RTO has been unsuccessful with marketing communications related to the brand objectives. Rather it could be seen as holding on to the same position over time in what is a very competitive market. The data suggest that the region has been consistently positioned strongly as a destination that is good value for money, uncrowded and not touristy.

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Table 5.

Bundaberg North Burnett perceived performance: 2003–2015.

	2015 Mean	2015 Rank	2012 Mean	2012 Rank	2007 Mean	2007 Rank	2003 Mean	2003 Rank
Suitable accommodation	5.1	5	5.0	5	5.1	5	5.2	5
Good value for money	5.2	2=	4.7	3=	5.1	3=	5.5	2=
Safe place	5.5	3	5.1	3	5.4	3	5.5	4
Beautiful scenery	5.7	4	5.2	4	5.6	4	n/a	n/a
Good climate	5.7	4=	5.4	4=	5.8	4=	5.9	4
Good cafes and restaurants	4.5	5	4.3	5	4.4	4=	4.7	4
Comfortable drive	3.5	5	3.6	5	3.8	5	3.6	5
Lots to see and do	4.9	5	4.7	5	5.0	5	5.0	5
Affordable packages	5.0	2	4.5	4	4.9	2	n/a	n/a
Good beaches	5.1	5	4.8	5	5.1	5	5.1	5
Friendly locals	5.0	3=	4.8	3	5.2	1	5.4	2=
High levels of service	4.5	5	4.3	5	4.4	5	n/a	n/a
Uncrowded	5.0	2=	4.7	1=	5.0	1=	5.6	1
Places for swimming	5.2	5	5.0	5	5.3	5	n/a	n/a
Not touristy	4.6	1	4.3	1	4.6	1	5.6	1
Walking tracks	4.9	4	4.5	4	4.5	4	5.4	4
Shopping	4.0	4	3.8	4	4.0	4	n/a	n/a
Family destination	5.2	4	4.9	3=	5.4	3	n/a	n/a
Historical places	4.3	2	4.4	1	4.6	1	n/a	n/a
Marine life	5.1	3	5.0	3	5.3	2=	n/a	n/a
Trendy atmosphere	3.5	5	3.6	5	3.5	5	n/a	n/a
Water sports	4.8	5	4.6	5	4.7	5	n/a	n/a

n/a: not applicable.

As indicated in the introduction, the Brisbane market is the most important for each of the competitive set of destinations. Given many of the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast destinations are within a comfortable one-hour drive for many Brisbane residents, they are popular for day trips and explain the relatively higher levels of visitation as shown in Table 6. The continuing low level of previous visitation might be a major barrier to competitiveness in this market, since in each of the four studies almost all participants in each of the four samples had previously visited their preferred ToMA destination: 94% in 2015, 93% in 2012 and 92% in 2007 and 2003.

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Table 6.

Previous visitation.

	2015 (%)	2012 (%)	2007 (%)
Sunshine Coast	91.1	87.2	94.6
Gold Coast	92.4	88.7	93.5
Northern NSW	72.8	62.5	72.4
Fraser Coast	49.4	51.6	64.9
Bundaberg North Burnett	40.5	39.0	42.8

Independent-samples t-tests identified significant positive differences, at the p < .05 level, between those who had previously visited Bundaberg North Burnett and those who had not for 8 of the 22 destination performance means: good value, safe, accommodation, climate, scenery, uncrowded, friendly, lots to see/do, marine life. Importantly, these include the five most important attributes, and ‘lots to see/do’ whichwas one of the perceived barriers to visitation identified in the STO’s 2002 focus groups. This suggests the more visitors who can be attracted to the region the more positive the destination image. Of those items where there were no significant differences, three relate to the barriers identified in the STO’s original 2002 focus groups: comfortable drive, shopping and cafes/restaurants. Therefore, since it is unlikely the RTO will be able to change peoples’ minds, these attributes should not be the focus of marketing communications. While there were also significant positive differences intent to visit and likelihood of recommending to others, the means for previous visitors were only 3.2 and 4.6, respectively.

Destination brand resonance

Table 7 shows the mean intent to visit each destination, on a 7-point scale. Table 8 shows the means for likelihood of recommending each destination to others. For both items, the results are again consistent over time and generally the same as the destination rankings in the brand salience and brand image data. For Bundaberg North Burnett, the means for both items were below the scale midpoint in each study, indicating a continuing need to improve brand resonance. The correlation coefficients between the destination’s attribute performance attributes and the destination brand resonance ranged from .3 to .5, indicating moderate to strong positive associations. Importantly, the two strongest correlations were for the two most important attributes. Also, the relationship between intent to visit and likelihood of recommending to others was strong (r = .696, p = .000).

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Table 7.

Intent to visit.

	2015	2012	2007	2003
Sunshine Coast	5.1	4.8	5.1	6.0
Gold Coast	4.7	3.9	3.9	5.5
Northern NSW	4.2	3.7	3.7	4.3
Fraser Coast	3.0	3.3	3.3	3.9
Coral Coast	2.6	2.7	2.7	3.1

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Table 8.

Likelihood of recommending to others.

	2015	2012	2007
Sunshine Coast	5.4	5.5	5.8
Northern NSW	4.6	4.5	4.8
Fraser Coast	3.8	4.3	4.8
Gold Coast	4.4	4.2	4.4
Coral Coast	3.3	3.7	3.9

Social media

As discussed, this section of questions was exploratory in nature and not an attempt to model any causality between social media activity and destination CBBE. Given the rise of user-generated content on social media during the period of this project, it was felt it might be useful to benchmark the level of engagement with the destinations on Facebook in particular. Of all social media, the most popular for participants was Facebook, for which 84% indicated having a profile. Other popular sites were LinkedIn (44%), Instagram (32%), Twitter (26%), Pinterest (23%) and Google+ (23%). In Table 9, there are two findings of interest; the ratio of those who had shared an experience at a destination on Facebook and the ratio of those who had started following a business at each destination. As can be seen, the destination rankings are consistent with the brand performance metrics. This seems to be a game of numbers where a destination that is visited by more people will achieve more Facebook postings. When asked to indicate the extent to which Facebook had influenced their short break holiday activities, on a 7-point scale anchored at ‘Definitely not’ (1) and ‘Definitely’ (7), the mean was 2.8. However, this is a difficult phenomenon to measure given as suggested by Crompton (1979) most individuals find it difficult to recall from memory what actually triggered motivation for travel given the multidimensional nature of destination decisions. It is likely, however, that high levels of user-generated travel content must have some effect as an organic destination image formation agent. To what extent this might have been occurring in the context of this study is not known given the lack of any changes in perceptions of each destination between 2003 and 2015. Independent-samples t-tests identified a significantly higher likelihood of recommending visiting Bundaberg North Burnett by those who had visited the destination and shared a post from the region on Facebook, with a mean of 5 (p = .000).

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Table 9.

Facebook activity.

	Shared experience		Started following business at destination
	n	Valid %	n	Valid %
Sunshine Coast	58	49.2	25	18.8
Gold Coast	51	35.4	27	17.1
Northern NSW	43	36.4	14	10.5
Fraser Coast	18	14.9	6	4.5
Coral Coast	16	12.9	6	4.5

Discussion

The paper addresses the lack of published studies investigating destination branding positioning, including destination image, over time. It is argued this is an important gap in the tourism literature, given (i) the influence perceptions of place play in an individual’s travel decision making, (ii) the ensuing emphasis on induced image formation attempts by DMOs and (iii) the key role branding now plays in guiding DMO marketing communications. The project commenced in 2003 by identifying the baseline market position of an emerging destination, shortly after the launch of a new brand campaign, benchmarked against four key competing regions. The overall aim of the new brand was to overcome a lack of awareness and negative perceptions of Bundaberg North Burnett as a tourism destination in the minds of residents of Brisbane, the largest source of visitors for each of the five contiguous RTOs. The research design was underpinned by the hierarchy of CBBE, with the three core constructs matching the three 2003 branding objectives. Analyses of perceptions have since been repeated with three different samples in 2007, 2012 and 2015, in order to monitor the brand position over time. The 2015 survey included additional exploratory questions related to participants’ social media adoption and online engagement with the five destinations.

The key finding of the project is that there have been minimal changes in the competitive positions of each of the five destinations between 2003 and 2015, in spite of 12 years of marketing communications by the RTOs and their stakeholders, and in spite of any user-generated travel content on social media. It is important to note the project has not attempted to analyse the marketing communications and branding collateral used by the five RTOs over the 12-year period. The focus has been on identifying CBBE (perceptions) in a large and important market, independent of the RTOs’ marketing activity. The implication of the project’s findings is that all the work of each RTO in this very competitive market has served to maintain their destination’s competitive position. The point is that whatever tactical initiatives the RTOs have implemented in their most important market, their competitive positions in terms of brand salience, image and resonance remain almost unchanged. The data highlight just how difficult it is for DMOs to manipulate the levers of consumer perceptions and brand choices, even in a large domestic market a comfortable drive away. Destination marketing takes place within a macro-environment where there are so many forces DMOs have no control over but which influence consumer behaviour (see, for example, Tribe, 1997).

One such topical macro-environment force likely to increasingly impact on destination competitiveness is social media, where the sheer volume of user-generated content by consumers is already swamping the marketing communications of DMOs. Exploratory questions in the 2015 survey about participants’ engagement with destination experiences on Facebook highlight the potential impact of future organic destination image development, independent of attempts to develop and enhance induced destination images. Future research should consider modelling the relationship between social media usage, to assist DMO social media strategy development.

Overall, the project demonstrates, for this competitive set of destinations, positive destination image change will probably only take place over a long period of time. Therefore, branding needs to be underpinned by a philosophy of a long-term financial investment as well as commitment to a consistency of message over time; which, given the politics of DMO decision making represents a considerable challenge. For the destination of interest in this project such politics is evident in the selection of the original brand name in 2003 and the new brand name. The RTO region consisted of 12 local government areas forced to work cooperatively in order to be officially recognised and supported by the STO in 2003. More recently, these shires were amalgamated into two major government boundaries, Bundaberg and North Burnett. Thus, the destination brand name changed from Bundaberg, Coral Coast and Country to Bundaberg North Burnett. For many DMOs political pressures to change the branding theme include, for example, stakeholders who feel it does not represent their product and/or feel it is time for a change for the sake of it; new management wanting to stamp their influence; and the opinions of government funders and influential travel intermediaries. Therefore, it is important to have a transparent process for monitoring the brand position over time, and in this project, it is suggested the CBBE hierarchy provides a structured means by which to communicate this to stakeholders.

For Bundaberg North Burnett, the project has yielded mixed results. On the positive side, the destination has been consistently positioned favourably as being good value for money, uncrowded and not touristy. There key negative finding was the lack of improvement in the destination brand position, relative to competitors in terms of salience, image and resonance between 2003 and 2012. Therefore, it is recommended value/uncrowded/not touristy form the focus of marketing communications in the Brisbane short break market. However, as at November 2015, the destination website was using the positioning theme Explore Bundaberg North Burnett, which along with the supporting blurb lacks focus (http://www.bundabergregion.org/destinations):

Welcome to the delightful Bundaberg North Burnett Region which extends from Buxton in the south to Baffle Creek in the north and Monto and Cania Gorge National Park in the west. Choose from island stay, city getaways, coastal escapes or rural retreats. With so much on offer, plan to stay longer and discover, experience and taste the delights of our region. We invite you to come for a day, come for a week…or stay forever!

Another positive finding is the destination is perceived more favourably by previous visitors than non-visitors on a number of key attributes, including one of the barriers to visitation identified in 2002. On this basis, it seems the region still suffers misconceptions in the Brisbane market that change for some attributes from visitation. However, the low level of previous visitation appears to be a major barrier to competitiveness in this market, since all participants in each of the four samples had previously visited their preferred ToMA destination. Previous visitors also indicate a higher likelihood of recommending the destination to others, particularly those Facebook users who share posts from the region. The RTO could consider developing more photo opportunities suitable for social media posting, as well as perhaps getting local residents actively engaging with social media to show off the region. Facebook engagement by the RTO is currently in its infancy with the profile (https://www.facebook.com/VisitBundaberg/) having only 7417 ‘likes’ and 35 people ‘have been there’ by November 2015.

A limitation of the project is that cannot be considered a longitudinal investigation, which would require the same participants to be involved in each study. Rather, four different samples were used. Also, while the same instrument formed the basis for each survey data collection changed from a paper-based questionnaire distributed to two random samples of Brisbane households to an online survey administered to members of a marketing research firm’s consumer research panel.

A key implication of the finding for academics is the need to be cautious about recommending destination brand repositioning strategies. Consideration should be taken with regard to the knowledge that any positive change will like only take place over the long term. Given, there has been relatively little published in relation to destination image change and destination positioning over time, more research is needed to examine the extent to which the findings of this study are relevant in other regions and travel contexts. In particular, there is a need for research investigating the effects of user-generated content on social media as a destination image formation agent.