A model of customer-based brand equity and its application to multiple destinations

Lack of research regarding destination brand measurement indicates that conceptualizing how tourists evaluate a destination brand is complex. This study examined empirical information to develop a destination brand model by employing customer-based brand equity models through a scale purification process, ensuring its reliability and validity. The proposed model and the alternative model were tested with an online survey sample of Las Vegas and Atlantic City visitors. The results provide support for the concept of customer-based brand equity and corroborate its application to the destination context. However, multi-sample invariance tests implied that destination-specific items should be considered when developing a destination brand model. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.