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DESTINATION BRANDING: THE COMPARATIVE CASE

STUDY OF GUAM AND VIETNAM
Thi Lan Huong Bui, University of Guam
Gerald S. A. Perez, Guam Visitors Bureau

ABSTRACT

In the context of a global recession, the tourism industry has struggled hard to battle
declines in sales turnover, particularly in countries where inbound tourism is a major economic
contributor to national output. To improve their competitiveness, many countries not only
promote their natural attractions but differentiate their destinations with branding strategies that
establish their unique positions to attract more international visitors and boost sales. This paper
is a comparative study of Japanese visitors and their behavior in Guam and Vietnam, both
destinations possessing many similarities in climate, culture, and beautiful beaches. Implications
for the tourism industry and branding are examined and justified by the high spending potential
of the Japanese market segment. Findings from this research can suggest successful paths to a
countrys branding strategy and tourism development.

INTRODUCTION

In the context of a global recession, the tourism industry has struggled hard to battle
declines in sales turnover, particularly in countries where inbound tourism is a major economic
contributor to national output. To improve their competitiveness, many countries not only
promote their natural attractions but also differentiate their destinations with branding strategies
that establish their unique position to attract more international visitors and to boost sales. The
challenge for destination marketers is how to differentiate their offering from competitors in a
growing competitive tourism market place.
In the tourism literature, many authors suggest that tourism destination branding
represents the most obvious means by which destinations can distinguish themselves from the
mass of commodity destinations around the world (Folyey, Fahy, 2004, cited by Fyall, Laesk,
2007). However, the need to attract visitors requires conscious branding strategies for the
different target visitor groups (Kotler, Gertner, 2002; Freire, 2002). Several countries were very
successful in applying the country branding concept, particularly New Zealand (Lodge, 2002),
Spain (Gilmore, 2002), France, Scotland (Olins, 2002), and the re-imaging of former Yugoslavia

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(Hand, 2002), other destinations experienced failures (for instance the case of Ontario analyzed
by Lodge, 2002).
The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the experience of destination
branding on Guam and Vietnam to differentiate their tourism products, both destinations
possessing many similarities in climate, culture, and beautiful beaches. The paper will focus on
the key inbound market segment for both destinations: the Japanese segment. The chosen
segment in this comparative study is justified by its high spending potential and this segment is
considered for both destinations their important market to attract. The perception of tourism
destination image from Japanese visitors will be analyzed empirically through our exploratory
qualitative survey with a small group of Japanese visitors arriving in Vietnam and Guam during
the same period of study. Thus, the better understanding about Japanese consumers behavior, in
particular their individual perception about the two destination images explored in this paper will
help marketers to identify specific destination image attributes and to design appropriate
destination branding strategy for this market.
Our paper is structured as follows: The first section presents tourism destination
branding research through a brief literature review. The second section analyzes the tourism
industry performance and competitiveness of the two destinations of Guam and Vietnam. The
third section explores through empirical study the Japanese consumers behavior and their
perception of these two destinations. The last section will discuss the findings and suggest
solutions to differentiate the destination brand images in order to improve significantly customer
satisfaction.

TOURISM DESTINATION BRANDING RESEARCH

Tourism destination branding has been viewed as the most powerful tool for destination
marketers for differentiation strategies, as places have been becoming more and more
substitutable. This section presents the complex nature of a tourism product, and particularly the
role of a destination image in the tourism destination branding process and its implications to
current destination marketing strategies adopted by destination marketers.

The nature of a destination product

A tourism destination is defined by the Word Tourism Organization (WTO) as a

physical space in which the visitor spends at least one night. It includes tourism products such as
support services and attractions, and tourism resources within one days return travel time
(WTO 2009, Handbook on Tourism destination Branding). In other words, it is an amalgam of
individually produced tourism amenities and services such as accommodation, transportation,
catering, entertainment and a wide range of public goods including natural beauty, socio-cultural

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surroundings, and atmosphere (Murphy, Pritchard, Smith, 2000). These tourism products are
consumed under the brand name of the destination (Buhalis, 2000). In this sense, the question of
the applicability of the branding construct for consumer goods and services to a tourism
destination is the starting point of our study.
Basically, academics and practitioners working in the tourism field have strongly agreed
that places can be branded in the same way as consumer goods (Kotler, Gertner, 2002; Freire,
2009). However, in practice, destination branding is a complex process due to the existence and
interdependence of multiple stakeholders1, multiple components and multiple suppliers involved
in the tourism service delivery (Buhalis, 2000). Tourism destination products also convey
multiple meanings to multiple markets and market segments (Fyall, Leask, 2007). At a
consequence, destination branding must be considered as a collective phenomenon that involves
multiple stakeholders, more than is normally found in the branding of consumer goods (Ritchie,
Ritchie, 1998).

The conceptualization of image in destination branding

Because of the complex nature of the tourism product compared with that of consumer
goods in the context of dynamic tourism market and changing visitors behavior (Buhalis, 2000),
the destination branding exercise is also a complex process composed of marketing activities that
support both brand elements such as a logo, a symbol,and a brand image associated with
functional, emotional, and experiential benefits in order to create an overall image that influences
consumers decisions (Blain et al, 2005).
This process will be effective if destination marketers are able to select a consistent brand
element mix and, more importantly, to develop a unique identity and personality through positive
image building that is different from other competitive destinations (Cai, 2002, Morrison,
Anderson, 2002, cited by Marzano). Thus, image perceived by visitors is widely considered as
the core element in destination branding because it influences travelers buying decisions making
and sales of tourist services (Jenkins, 1999). This explains a large body of research works on the
images components and the formation of destination image during the last decade (Crompton,
1979; Gun, 1988; Echtner, Ritchie, 1993; Buhalis, 2000; Freire, 2002; Hall, 2002; Kotler,
Gertner, 2002; Lodge, 2002; Pike, 2008; Frochot, Kreziak, 2008; Le, Cooper, 2009).

The concept of destination image

Generally, image is viewed as an attitudinal construct consisting of an individuals

mental representation of knowledge, feelings and global impressions about an object or a
destination (Bagolu, McClearry, 1999, cited by Frochot, Kreziak, 2008, lines 20-24). Tourist
destination image refers therefore a set of individual tangible and intangible attributes, including

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global feeling about the destination that forms the final composite image (Crompton, 1979;
Echtner, Ritchie, 1991; Freire, 2007).
In this sense, like the image of products or services, destination image is composed of a sum of
attributes such as physical or human features including mountains, beaches or friendly people
(Echtner, Ritchie, 1993). But what is specific in destination image construct is that it has both
multi-dimensional and dynamic nature. It is multidimensional because it comprises of
interrelated aspects such as cognitive, affective and conative components. It represents a mixture
of the knowledge, feeling, belief and opinions, ideas, expectations and impressions that people
have about a named place (Crompton, 1979; Freire, 2002). More importantly, it is not static but
dynamic (Freire, 2002) because it results from its geography, history, proclamations, art and
music, famous citizens and other features (Kotler, Gertner, 2002). Moreover, destination image
is also considered as a repertoire of brand associations held in the mind of the consumer that play
a significant role in consumer behavior, formation of satisfaction, service quality and also future
recommendations (Buhalis, 2000; Pike, 2008).
It is worth noting that the image perceived by visitors might not be necessarily similar to
that anticipated by destination marketers. Nevertheless, research on consumer behavior reviewed
by Pike enhances the importance of actual image since tourism services can only compete via
images, it is imperative marketers understand that perception is reality (lines 3, 4, Pike, 2008).

The formation of destination image

When doing research on the formation of destination image, Gun (1988) was truly
interested in studying its dynamic process associated with the three phases of the purchasing
decision making process. At the pre-purchase, organic images are formed by travelers
themselves through their past experiences with tourist destinations, and through different sources
of information such as news reports, movies, newspaper articles, word of mouth, etc. before
deciding to visit a tourism destination. Then, these organic images are transformed to induced
images that are created through information received from external sources such as travel agents,
brochures, etc.). Finally, at the post-purchase (when the vacation is over), visitors have again
modified their image into a more realistic, complex and differentiated one called actual or
modified image.
Guns research work has helped destination marketers manage effectively their brand
image by different ways. First, they should focus on modifying the induced image since they can
do little change the organic image. Second, among the three phases in the image formation
process, the last phase is much more interesting for marketers to focus on because a complex
image has been shown to be more varied and more complete. Third, this image changes over
time. Therefore, it is important for destination marketers to be able to manage changes in the
image perceived by the target market (Buhalis, 2000; Pike, 2008).

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Implications on destination branding strategies

The complex nature of tourist products and destination brand image has implications on
destination branding strategies for marketers.
First, among destination image attributes, the empirical literature points out that attributes
related to human dimension such as employees working in the tourism industry (defined by
Freire as local people) and local residents are the most important factor that might influence
significantly the destination image (Kilter, Donald, Rein, 1993; Freire, 2009) while physical
attributes such as landscape, accommodation, and catering have been increasingly standardized
and do not assure consumption. To create a positive image, tourism organizations and
entrepreneurs tend to motivate and train their staff. Besides, the attitude of local residents
seems much more important than other brand elements like a logo, a tagline, and physical and
functional attributes of the tourism products to generate customer satisfaction (Kilter, Donald,
Rein, 1993).
Second, due to the complexity and the interaction of tourism stakeholders involved in the
destination branding exercise (Buhalis, 2002), destination marketers should consider destination
branding as a collaborative effort in terms of creation of shared image of the destination across
stakeholders so as to ensure consistency in the destination brand image delivered (Blain, 2001;
Deslandes, 2003; Kaplanidou, Vodgt, 2003; Morgan, Pritchard, Piggott, 2003).

THE TOURISM INDUSTRYS PERFORMANCE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF

GUAM AND VIETNAM

Over the past decades, Guam and Vietnam, both located in the Asia-Pacific region, and
possessing beautiful nature, a tropical climate and rich culture, are popular tourism destinations
for foreigners, especially the Asian travelers. For a small island like Guam, the largest island in
the Mariana Archipelago, with a small population (around 180,000 inhabitants), the tourism
industry has experienced a substantial expansion since the 1980s. While Guam achieved its peak
tourism numbers with more than 1.3 million arrivals between 1995 and 1997, Vietnam, situated
in South East Asia, began its first experience in boosting inbound travel with 150,000 foreign
visitors, a very modest number of arrivals. Since then, there has been a similar upward trend
observed in the two destinations in the context of steady growth of arrivals recorded in the Asia-
Pacific region2. However, their tourism sector had been particularly sensitive to external shocks.
In fact, it grew steadily with three declines caused by the Asian financial crisis in 1998, by the
SARS epidemic in 2003 and the global economic recession since 2008 (Exhibit 1 and 2). The
unprecedented boom of the number of international tourist arrivals in both destinations may be
explained generally by high economic growth, favorable government policies, and marketing
efforts to promote places by both travel companies and public tourism organizations. Specifically

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in the case of Vietnam, it is the result of the open door policy to support the industry since the
early 1990s that is reflected in its tourism openness score of 4.9 (ranked as 66/133 in 2007).
Vietnam had become among the worlds top emerging tourism destinations in the period of 1995
to 2004 (World Tourism Organization, UNWTO, 2005 Edition).
The growth in international tourist arrivals in Guam and Vietnam has been accompanied
by a large increase in tourism income and thus has contributed impressively to their countrys
economic performance. For Guam, its dependence on tourism is remarkably high. Its annual
revenue for tourism averages more than USD1.2 billion and represents nearly 60% of its GDP.
9% of the labor force has been working in this sector. For Vietnam, its annual grow rate of
around 9.2% is quite high compared with the average of the Asia-Pacific region (6.5%). In 2008,
international tourism receipts reached a record of VND64, 000 billion (equivalent to USD3.55
billion) according to Vietnamese statistical data (GSO, 2009). It accounts for 4.3% of Vietnams
GDP and has created more than one million jobs accounting for 3.3% of the total labor force.
However, the share of tourism in Vietnams GDP remains relatively low in the Asian-Pacific
region that consolidated its second position in terms of international tourism receipts. In fact,
tourism contributed 14.8% of Cambodias GDP, 8.4% of Thailands and Hong Kongs GDP or
9% of Malaysias GDP during the same period.
A closer look at the number of arrivals for 100 inhabitants (international tourist density)
indicates that it is much more lower that that of its other ASEAN members (5/100 against 13/100
in Cambodia, 22/100 in Thailand, 77/100 in Malaysia, and 167/100 in Singapore. More
interestingly, it is marginal when it is compared to 556 international arrivals per 100 inhabitants
in Guam3. This impressive fact about Guams tourism is it has been able to stabilize the economy
for a long period of time.
In terms of visitors-mix, even if the two destinations attract mostly Asian travelers, the
inbound market of Vietnam appears much more diversified, including key target markets from
Asia, Europe, America, and Australia. Guam has concentrated on the Japanese segment that
accounts for 80% of its inbound market for the last 30 years (Exhibits 3, 4).
In reviewing the tourism life cycle, if Vietnam has been reaching the growth stage, Guam
has already reached its maturity stage. The ability to maintain the high number of visitors in
Guam is explained by the sound branding and marketing strategy through a five-year Strategic
Plan that outlines the development of a cohesive destination brand image for Guam. According
to the marketing director of GVB, the goal of creating destination value with pricing power
through intensifying pride of place with a unified brand image is critical to Guams tourism
industry. To achieve this goal, a harmonized articulation among tourism stakeholders, both
private and public including the resident community, with a shared long term vision seems to be
the key factor of success in Guams branding exercise.
Like Guam, Vietnam also received significant support from its authorities to promote the
industry in terms of both budget and instructions for designing an integrated marketing
communication strategy to increase the number of foreign visitors. Despite the high potential of

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the tourism sector to contribute to the Vietnamese economic growth, Vietnam remains
apparently less competitive in the global market.

Figure 1
Evolution of the number of foreign tourists arrived in Guam and in Vietnam (thousand)

Figure 2
Evolution of the number of foreign tourists (by country) arriving in Vietnam (thousands) and visitors-mix (in
percentage)

The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index 2009 (TTCI) published by the World
Economic Forum (WEF) shows that Vietnam was ranked only 89 among 133 countries in 2009,
left far behind by most of their ASEAN member counterparts. Still, it is mostly price competitive
while other sustainable factors such as environment protection, safety and security, health and
hygiene, and tourism infrastructure are appraised as poor. Particularly, road traffic accidents,
quality of roads, and quality of education system seem the most striking issues for the
Vietnamese tourism industry. For instance, Vietnam was ranked 116/133 out of the comparative
countries for road traffic accidents, and 102/133 for quality of roads. Such figures have their

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power in demonstrating clearly the sources of lack of attractiveness of the Vietnam tourism
industry: poor tourism product offerings combined with low quality of service delivery both in
physical and human tourism infrastructure.
Most importantly, Vietnam has not yet built a strong destination brand image in the
perception of foreign travelers (Nguyen Anh Tuan, 2009) and has not yet implemented a sound
national destination branding strategy embracing the corporate spirit to become much more
attractive in the eyes of foreign travelers as the tourism literature suggests. As a matter of fact, in
the past few years, Vietnam has been making tremendous commercial efforts to promote the
country image. Local reports show that the budget for tourism promotions in 2009 is 25 VND
billions. Thus, Vietnam is ranked 47/133 considering the number of international fairs and
exhibitions held in the country annually. This indicates that Vietnam participates actively in
promoting the Vietnamese tourism market. Still in the global perspective, Vietnam was ranked
109/133 in terms of travel and tourism government expenditures as a percentage of the total
budget in 2008. And the effectiveness of marketing and branding to attract tourists is ranked
62/133 for Vietnam, left far behind from Singapore (3/133), Hong Kong (5/133), Malaysia
(12/133), Thailand (14/133) or Indonesia (31/133). This is mainly explained by the significant
gap between the tourism destination brand image anticipated by Vietnams destination marketing
organizations and the image perceived by foreign visitors. In fact, the message communicated
since the early 2000s that includes respectively Vietnam, a destination for a new Millennium,
Welcome to Vietnam, Vietnam, the Hidden Charm with the initial logo showing a
Vietnamese girl wearing traditional dress does not appear sufficiently unique to differentiate
from its other Asian competitors.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND ACTUAL DESTINATION IMAGE FROM THE

PERCEPTION OF JAPANESE VISITORS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Destination branding research suggests that the image perceived by visitors influences
significantly travel purchase decisions. Therefore, understanding destination images held by
consumers is important for destination marketers to design effectively destination branding
strategies. To do so, we propose an empirical research design with a qualitative survey exploring
the Japanese visitors consumption patterns as well as their perception about the two
destinations brand images that will assist us in updating our understanding in this market. For
Vietnam, since no previous academic research has focused on the perception of Japanese visitors
toward the tourist product consumption and image formation, our exploratory qualitative study
measuring a small sample of Japanese visitors perceptions, motivations, and attitudes is
justified. For Guam, we referred to the results of the market research provided by GVB during
the same period from Qmark Research4.

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In the empirical literature, two methods can be used to investigate tourist behavior, structured
and unstructured (Echtner, Ritchie, 1991), but the structured approach has been chosen because it
is relevant to our comparative study purpose. This methodology is easy to administer, to
facilitate comparisons between the two destinations, but it does not incorporate holistic aspect of
image (Le, Cooper, 2008, lines 12, 17, 19, pp.41). We design the questionnaire for Vietnam by
adopting the outline of the questionnaire used in Guam by Guam Visitor Bureau (GVB, 2009) to
collect information about motives, tourist attractions perception, traveler types, travel
companion, travel frequency, length of stay, trip expenditures, as well as visitors level of
satisfaction about tourists products after visitors traveling experience.
Regarding the interviewees, for the two destinations, departing Japanese visitors were
randomly asked to fill out the questionnaire after their trip. For Vietnam, 100 questionnaires
were distributed to Japanese visitors who traveled in Vietnam during the period of April-May
2009. 63 questionnaires out of 100 were returned.
The profile of visitors participating in this study was mostly middle income, and male
and female respondents were equally distributed. Interestingly, young adults now account for a
large share of Japanese arrivals both in Vietnam and in Guam as half of travelers visiting Guam
and Vietnam are in their 20s (50% from 20 to 29 years old and 30% from 29 to 39 years old).
The popularity of these two destinations among young Japanese people might be explained by
two main reasons. The first reason is the reputation of both Guam and Vietnam as a safe place
(that is considered as the key criteria of destination choice for Japanese travelers). The second
reason is the growing interest of this group (young professionals, students, new graduates, etc) in
enjoying oneself economically while traveling abroad due to their limited income. These
arguments are validated by Hakuhodo survey indicating Guam and Vietnam are ranked by
Japanese visitors as destinations for low travel budget5.
The striking difference observed in travel companion pattern is that more Japanese
visitors (30%) travel alone to Vietnam than to Guam (2%). Another interesting difference
revealed is that Japanese visitors tend to travel to discover Vietnam with their office colleagues
(15%) more than Guam (5%). They tend to enjoy travel experiences with their family, including
young children in Guam (52%) than in Vietnam (25%). This might be explained by shorter travel
time and better food safety and health conditions offered in Guam than in Vietnam as Japanese
always have great concerns about health and hygiene. Most of them chose the free time package
tour (for Guam) or the full package (for Vietnam) than the group tour.
Japanese visitors tend to stay longer in Vietnam (5 days) than in Guam (3 days). More
than half of the respondents in the two samples said that it was their first trip to Vietnam or
Guam. The rest have already visited Vietnam or Guam several times, mostly between 2 to 4
times. Particularly four respondents of the sample conducted in Vietnam have returned to
Vietnam for 6 to 10 times. This implies that both Vietnam and Guam as a tourism destination
brand have a good image for repeat purchases. Japanese tourists spend twice as much when in
Guam (200 USD per day per pax) than in Vietnam for on-island expenditures. In general, they

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spend more for food and beverages than for optional tours once in Vietnam. In Guam, they spend
half (48%) for gifts and souvenirs, 17% for food and 11% for optional tours.
Motivations to visit the two destinations are quite different. For one-fourth of our sample,
they chose Vietnam because they enjoyed their previous visits and believed that Vietnam is a
safe place to spend their vacation. One-third highly appreciated the price of the package tour.
This implies that small budget segment, including especially young professionals who tends to
travel alone is likely favorable to visit Vietnam. This argument is supported by the literature that
links destination brand decision making with travelers choice criteria and motives (Pike, 2002).
Besides, shopping is also an important motive. 19% love shopping. 15% of respondents go to
Vietnam to visit friend or relatives, and 8% go to Vietnam for business. Only 2% are motivated
by promotional programs launched by the Vietnamese Visitor Office. Other reasons to visit
Vietnam are delicious meals, spa services, climate, and recommendations by friends. In contrast,
the most important reasons for choosing Guam are natural beauty, price, pleasure and short travel
time, prior trips, recommendations from friends, wedding and honeymoon packages. Safety also
seems to be a strong motivator to visit Guam. In short, motivations to visit Vietnam or Guam are
influenced much more by visitors past experiences, friends, and destination image attributes
perceived rather than promotions launched by the destination marketing organizations.
Regarding attitudes towards tourist attractions, we find out that 52% of those surveyed
are fond of Vietnamese specialties. They are excited about Vietnamese food, in particular special
Vietnamese dishes such as Pho (Vietnamese noodle), fried and fresh spring rolls. And 32% love
shopping. 27% enjoy Vietnamese landscape and beaches and 14% like to visit museums. Only
8% prefer cultural festivals. Other activities that attract Japanese tourists are: Vietnamese
buildings, fire works, food, and nice people. When in Guam, they love beaches (60%), a relaxing
atmosphere (41%), shopping (40%), price (40%), short time travel (48%), and water sports
(19%).
Finally, after experiencing traveling in Guam, they express high satisfaction for clean
beaches (the mean of satisfaction score in the Likert seven point rating scale is 5.6), ease of
getting around (mean=5.4), and safety of walking at night (mean=5.0) much more than price
(mean=4.7)6. They particularly were satisfied with the staff at hotels and restaurants. Meanwhile,
for Vietnam, Japanese visitors express clearly their dissatisfaction about ease of getting around
and poor service quality and attitudes of employees in hotels when compared with much more
professional service delivery and tourist infrastructure in Guam. Only one-third are apparently
very satisfied or satisfied about the cleanliness of parks and beaches. Nevertheless, 16% are very
dissatisfied or less satisfied while the rest are neutral. As far as ease of getting around, more than
half of respondents are not satisfied at all, especially while getting across the streets. Basically,
two-third is satisfied and very satisfied with the quality of tours, of hotel accommodations and
the price of goods in Vietnam. However, it is worth noting the dissatisfaction of 14% about the
bad service quality and attitudes of employees in hotels.

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The above study on Japanese visitors perception about destination brand suggests that
natural beauty (clean and beautiful beaches), relaxing atmosphere, pleasure, short time
travel, shopping experience, safety, water sports, good infrastructure, good local
employees has contributed to the positive image of Guam. For Vietnam, safety, friendly
people, delicious cuisine, reasonable prices, good climate, and rich culture (cultural
festival, Vietnamese buildings,...) form positive destination image components. However, bad
attitude of employees in hotels, poor tourism infrastructure, lack of road safety and poor
hygiene conditions have caused the negative image of Vietnam comparing with professional
service delivery, good infrastructure and safety in Guam. Our results are consistent with previous
empirical research work conducted by Le Tuan Anh and Cooper (2009). Their importance-
performance analysis reveals that beautiful landscapes and relaxing atmosphere, low prices,
delicious cuisine, and friendliness toward Japanese people, new experiences, and rich culture are
key features that contribute positively to Vietnam brand image. In contrast, the situation of
cleanliness as well as service quality might spoil other positive images of Vietnam.
Thus, based on actual destination brand image perceived by Japanese visitors, Guam
appears a tourist destination of choice for leisure and short travel time for the Japanese segment
who are motivated by natural beauty, pleasure, geographical proximity. Meanwhile, Vietnam
seems a popular choice for the smaller budget segment that cares about value for money. Our
findings are consistent with Hakuhodos survey of brand strengths of international tourism
destinations project conducted in 20047 where Guam was ranked as the second top brand
destination after Hawaii and before South Korea, Australia and France because of its far higher
infrastructure value than the others. In terms of low travel budget, Vietnam is among other Asian
destinations for the Japanese segment as it appears with India, Mexico, Thailand, and Bulgaria
among the best country brand for value for money.8

DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The above analysis of the Japanese inbound market of Vietnam and Guam and the
investigation about the consumers perception about destination image suggests implications on
destination branding strategies for destination marketers as well as recommendations from
lessons learned from the Guam branding exercise in order to increase the number of new arrivals
and repeat visits for Vietnam.

Understanding the important role of the human factor in destination branding

Our field study discovered low customer satisfaction in Vietnam with the attitude of
people delivering tourist services, especially employees in hotels in Vietnam. In such a
condition, Vietnam has to confront the negative image about employees in hotels. Therefore,

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tourism organizations should train local people working in the tourism industry to enhance
customer satisfaction and to improve destination brand image as recommended in the empirical
literature review.
Even though local residents seem friendly to Japanese visitors, tourism organizations
should get them actively involved in creating the positive destination image.

Improving the overall experience of the destination

The level of customer satisfaction about a destination brand depends on the assessment of
the overall experience of the destination versus expectations and perceptions. Therefore, it is
extremely important for destination marketers to enhance the positive destination image in order
to satisfy visitors expectations (Morgan, Pritchard, 1998; Sealon, 1997, cited by Buhalis, 2000).
Actions are necessary to change the perceptions of Japanese visitors about road safety
and hygiene problems in Vietnam. If the Japanese market appears clearly a high spending
potential market for Vietnam, it also is very demanding and requires high quality service and
concerns about safety at destination while traveling abroad (GVB, 2009).9
The current tourism promotion strategy adopted by the Vietnamese authorities
emphasizing the popular promotions tools widely applied in the tourism industry including PR,
advertising and trade fairs targeting foreign visitors in different markets, seems insufficient and
inefficient in boosting sales and creating a strong country brand. Due to the changing tourism
market as well as consumer behavior, Ritchie, Ritchie (2002) suggests the need for a move from
promotion-oriented destination marketing to a more holistic, strategic approach in order to attain
sustainable competitive advantage.

The tourism brand building exercise, a collective process and lessons learned from Guam

Because of the interdependency among stakeholders, harmonized collaboration to

develop the branding plan currently is recognized as fundamental key factor of success (Lodge,
2002; Baker, Cameron, 2008). Destination branding is a collective exercise that involves
destination marketing organizations, namely service suppliers, community, visitors, employees
and local residents that are able to generate benefits not only to visitors but also to all of the
tourism stakeholders. Most importantly, the absence of unity of the top can cripple a national
branding initiative (lines 20-21, p. 384, Lodge, 2002). In this sense, lessons learned from the
Guam branding exercise focusing from the development of a confluence of images to the
involvement of the community in embracing the brand as well as engendering local support are
helpful for Vietnamese policy makers to improve their country brand image.

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CONCLUSION

The growing global competition in the tourism industry has been making tourism
products and services more or less homogeneous. To enhance customer satisfaction and hence to
increase the number of visitors, tourism destinations have been attempting to differentiate their
brand image. In this context, both destinations (Guam and Vietnam) possessing many similarities
in climate, culture, and beautiful beaches, have been instituting initiatives to differentiate their
tourism offerings, not only in the eyes of their highly yielding Japanese market but also other
target segments. Guam has been gradually succeeded in building a strong tourism brand. In the
case of Vietnam, the lack of uniqueness of destination brand image has limited the number of
repeat visits; long-term growth and profitability for the inbound tourism sector, and has increased
difficulties to differentiate itself from competitive offerings from its Asian neighbors.
Our findings in this comparative study revealed the gap between the desired destination
brand image and the actual image perceived by Japanese visitors. They also suggest possibilities
for Vietnam to reinforce a positive image to satisfy the visitors needs. Lessons learned from
Guams experience to elaborate the destination branding process by getting the greatest
community participation in this effort with strong and effective coordination of the stakeholders
are useful for Vietnam. Due to the complexity of the branding process and the dynamic nature of
the tourism market and travelers behavior, the collective branding exercise should bear a
corporate mind with carefully constructed values and long term strategies that focus on
visitors vacation experiences rather than on promoting destination itself.
Our contribution from this research includes suggesting successful paths to a countrys
branding strategy and tourism development for emerging markets such as Vietnam in order to
increase the number of arrivals as well as to enhance customer satisfaction.
The limitations of our research work are twofold. First, the destination image analyzed in
our empirical study is the overall or modified image perceived in the post-purchase stage of
travel buying process. Even though actual modified image tend to be realistic and complex as
suggested by the literature, research on induced image and organic image that are formed
during the pre- and post-visit perceptions of the same sample of visitors should be also explored
for better understanding about the complete destination image formation process. Second, image
attributes perceived by Japanese visitors are functional, and physical rather than emotional and
psychological. Besides, the holistic image has been ignored.
The exploratory survey used to investigate the Japanese visitors behavior in Vietnam is
qualitative. Further research work will include a quantitative survey with a representative sample
to validate our qualitative findings. Our next step will also attempt to measure destination image
comprehensively by capturing all of its components generated during the three stages of the
image formation process.

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ENDNOTES
1
Stakeholders identified by the World Tourism Organization are political, commercial, travel businesses and
residents (WTO, 2009).

2
Between 1995 and 2007, the Asia-Pacific regions share of total international arrivals increased from
18.7% to 25.7% ( Statistical yearbook for Asia and the Pacific, 2009)

3
Source: GSO (2009), Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the pacific 2009, Calculations by the author

4
A random quantitative survey sample of 1,985 departing Japanese visitors at Guam International airport
with a margin of error of 95 confidence level.

5
Hakuhodos survey of brand strengths of international tourist destinations with Tourist Destination Brand
Analyzer, January 31, 2005

6
To measure customer satisfaction for Guam, Qmark Research use Likert 7 point rating scale where 7= very
satisfied and 1= very dissatisfied.

7
Survey and analysis of the brand strength of 51 tourist destinations around the world with the sample of
1000 respondents: 600 in the metropolitan Tokyo and 400 in the Kansai region. Three elements of tourist
brand equity are captured as experience value (related to the experiences the destination offer),
infrastructure value (related to the location and the accommodations) and information value (related to
reputation and the accessibility of information).

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8
http://www.futurebrand.com/news/press-released/united-states-claims-1-spot-for-first-time-asworlds-top-
country-brand/

9
83% of the sample delivered by Qmark Research is concerned about safety at the destination, 59% about
terrorism.

Journal of International Business Research, Volume 9, Special Issue 2, 2010

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