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Promoting Niche Tourism

Destination Brands
a a
Nigel J. Morgan PhD & Annette Pritchard PhD
a
Welsh Centre for Tourism Research, Welsh School
of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Management,
University of Wales Institute, Colchester Avenue,
Cardiff, Wales, CF23 9XR, UK
Published online: 08 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Nigel J. Morgan PhD & Annette Pritchard PhD (2005) Promoting
Niche Tourism Destination Brands, Journal of Promotion Management, 12:1, 17-33,
DOI: 10.1300/J057v12n01_03

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 Promoting Niche Tourism
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Destination Brands:
Case Studies of New Zealand and Wales
Nigel J. Morgan
Annette Pritchard

ABSTRACT. Promoting tourism destination brands presents many chal-

lenges and this article opens by briefly reviewing the destination brand
management context. Critical to the creation and promotion of a durable
destination brand is the identification of the brand’s values, the transla-
tion of those into a suitably emotionally appealing personality and the
targeted and efficient promotion of that message. While this is difficult,
it is not impossible to achieve in destination marketing, and, having re-
viewed some of the key issues in brand management, the article explores
the context and creation of the New Zealand and Wales tourism brands.
The recent initiatives of both Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) and the
Wales Tourist Board (WTB) represent the first ever-global branding
strategies for both destinations and the article examines how innovative
promotion can showcase landscapes, peoples, cultures and tourism ac-
tivities. The article concludes that through effective marketing research
and partnerships, and by harnessing the World Wide Web (WWW) and
public relations opportunities, both TNZ and WTB are creating strong

Nigel J. Morgan (PhD, University of Exeter, UK) (E-mail: nmorgan@uwic.ac.uk)

and Annette Pritchard (PhD, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK) (E-mail apritchard@
uwic.ac.uk) are Readers in Tourism Studies, Welsh Centre for Tourism Research,
Welsh School of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Management, University of Wales
Institute, Colchester Avenue, Cardiff, Wales CF23 9XR, UK.
The authors would like to acknowledge their debts to Roger Pride (Wales Tourist
Board) and Rachel Piggott (Tourism New Zealand), their co-authors on previous publi-
cations, for these case studies.
Journal of Promotion Management, Vol. 12(1) 2005
Available online at http://www.haworthpressinc.com/web/JPM
 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J057v12n01_03 17
 18 JOURNAL OF PROMOTION MANAGEMENT

travel destination brands, positioned as appealing niche players in

today’s global tourism industry. [Article copies available for a fee from
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The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:

<docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>
© 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Branding, destination branding, internet, New Zealand,

promotion, tourism, Wales, World Wide Web (WWW)

INTRODUCTION

All of today’s leading destinations offer superb accommodation and

attractions, high quality service and facilities are expected and every
country claims unique culture and heritage. As a result, the need for des-
tinations to promote a differentiated product is more critical than ever.
Indeed, it has become the basis for survival within a globally competi-
tive market place where the ten major destinations attract approxi-
mately 70% of the worldwide tourism market (Piggott, 2001). Yet,
despite this aggressive marketplace, the stock-in-trade of too much
tourism destination promotion remains advertisements depicting blue
seas, cloudless skies and endless golden beaches with a less than memo-
rable tagline. Such “wallpaper” advertising, selling the user benefit of
relaxation and a golden tan has the effect of rendering all seaside desti-
nations indistinguishable from one another. Yet what does differentiate
one Caribbean or Mediterranean island from its nearest neighbour?
Rarely sun and sand. In this marketplace what persuades potential tour-
ists to visit (and revisit) one place instead of another is whether they
have empathy with the destination and its values. The battle for custom-
ers in tomorrow’s destination marketplace will be fought over hearts
and minds–and this is where place promotion moves into the territory of
brand management.
Brands have social, emotional and identity value to users: they have
personalities and enhance the perceived utility, desirability and quality
of a product (Kotler and Gertner, 2002). When consumers make brand
choices about products–including destinations–they are making life-
style statements since they are buying not only into an image but also
into an emotional relationship (Urdde, 1999; Sheth, Mittal and New-
man, 1999). As style and status indicators therefore, destinations can
promote the same consumer benefits as other more highly branded life-
 Nigel J. Morgan and Annette Pritchard 19

style accoutrements such as cars, perfumes, watches and clothes. All are
used to communicate, reflect and reinforce associations, statements and
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group memberships and in the same way, tourists use “their trips as ex-
pressive devices to communicate messages about themselves to peers
and observers” (Clarke, 2000, p. 330). Travel for leisure is often a
highly involving experience, extensively planned, excitedly anticipated
and fondly remembered. Souvenirs and “props” trigger and display
those experiences–photographs, videos and “wish you were here” post-
cards are shared with friends and relatives and logo-emblazoned mer-
chandise and luggage labels proclaim “been there, done that” to any
observers who take notice (Clarke, 2000; Westwood, 2004). Choice of
holiday destination is thus a significant lifestyle indicator for today’s
aspirational consumers and the places where they choose to spend their
increasingly squeezed vacation time and hard earned income have to be
emotionally appealing with high conversational and celebrity value.
It is well established, of course, that a tourism destination is not a
product (see Buhalis, 2000; Morgan and Pritchard, 2004) and, while
there are significant opportunities in the imaginative and responsible
application of product marketing to places, destinations cannot (and
should not) be promoted as if they were soap powder. Anholt (2002) has
argued that a more useful metaphor than “country as product brand” is
“country as corporate brand.” Moreover, he goes on to suggest that
some of the misconceptions surrounding the possibilities of destination
or country branding spring from the notion that today’s marketers can
actually “brand” or “rebrand” a place. More accurately, what they are
attempting to do is to manage an existing brand, to work with and often
to gradually change existing perceptions (and misconceptions) of places
(see also Olins, 2004). Managing a destination brand thus presents
many challenges and this article opens by briefly reviewing the tourism
destination brand-management context. It argues that the identification
of the brand’s values, the translation of those into a suitably emotionally
appealing personality and the targeted and efficient promotion of that
message is critical to the creation of a durable destination brand. Having
reviewed some of the key issues in place promotion, the article explores
the context of the New Zealand and Wales brands. It identifies the is-
sues crucial to the promotion of these destination brands and examines
the positioning processes and the creation of their strategies. The article
suggests that through the harnessing of non-traditional media, small
destinations such as New Zealand and Wales are able to create strong
travel destination brands, positioned as niche players in the global tour-
ism industry.
 20 JOURNAL OF PROMOTION MANAGEMENT

DESTINATION BRANDING–
PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES
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All destinations face peculiar promotion and branding challenges

since they have many stakeholders and little management control. Thus,
in addition to the traditional marketing mix, destination managers not
only have to contend with the amorphous nature of the product itself,
but also with two further “Ps” of destination marketing–what Pride
(2002) terms “politics” and “paucity.” A destination clearly differs from
other products in that it is not a single product at all, but a composite
product consisting of a bundle of different components, encompassing
accommodation, hospitality, attractions, arts, entertainment, culture,
heritage and the natural environment (Buhalis, 2000; Ritchie and Crouch,
2000; Pike 2004).
Destination marketers have little control over these different sectors
and yet this diverse range of agencies and companies are all stakeholders
in the destination brand. They include: local and national government and
their agencies; environmental groups and agencies; chambers of com-
merce; trade associations; civic groups and the wider private sector
(Morgan and Pritchard, 1999, 2004). The challenge for destination mar-
keters is to make the destination brand live, so that visitors experience
the promoted brand values and feel the authenticity of a unique place.
Yet, in this task, public sector destination marketers are hugely ham-
pered by a variety of political pressures–they have to reconcile local and
regional interests and promote an identity acceptable to a range of pub-
lic and private sector constituencies (Kotler, Haider and Rein, 1993).
Successful destination branding is thus about achieving a balance be-
tween applying cutting-edge advertising and public relations (PR) ap-
proaches to a marketing problem and the realpolitik of managing local,
regional and national interests. Some of the reasons tourism destination
brands fail include: resistance to direction from the top; a failure to rec-
oncile economic development and tourism marketing; and other organi-
sations’ reluctance to harmonise their marketing with the destination’s
branded campaign (Curtis, 2001). The short-termism of their chief po-
litical stakeholders and paymasters is also a key problem for National
Tourism Organisations (NTOs). Yet a destination brand’s lifespan is a
longer-term proposition than most politicians’ careers and marketers
must “stay the course,” and resist making hurried changes since “it
takes many years to establish a brand image, establish name recognition
and develop strong awareness of a destination or product” (Curtis,
2001, p. 81).
 Nigel J. Morgan and Annette Pritchard 21

In addition to confronting the politics of destination branding, most

NTOs have very small budgets with which to create global brands–and
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yet they are competing for consumer mind-share not just with other des-
tinations, but also with every other global brand. Whilst one corporate
giant such as Sony would spend in excess of US$300 million annually
on its global advertising, at the time of writing (spring 2002) Tourism
New Zealand (TNZ) had an annual media budget of NZ$12 million and
the Wales Tourist Board (WTB) an overseas marketing budget of just
£1.5m (TNZ, 2000a; WTB, 2000). Both NTOs are thus clearly niche
players in the global marketplace and shrinking NTO budgets and rising
media costs both contribute to a highly competitive promotion environ-
ment for such small countries. In this context, it is clear that niche play-
ers have to outsmart rather than outspend the competition–and in this
battle traditional mass marketing techniques cannot effectively address
the share of voice problem. The answer lies in creating innovative, at-
tention-grabbing communications on a tight budget and maximising the
media spend. As we will see below, in today’s era of relationship mar-
keting, the WWW offers a cost-efficient and effective alternative to
simple mass medium “sloganeering” for such NTOs.

THE PROMOTIONAL CHALLENGE

FOR NEW ZEALAND AND WALES

Two destinations that are currently using the WWW as a key plat-
form in building a brand proposition around their stunning natural envi-
ronment are New Zealand and Wales (Morgan, Pritchard and Piggott,
2002; Pride, 2002, Piggott, Morgan and Pritchard 2004). The two desti-
nations are quite similar in many ways: both are geographically small
countries with more sheep than people (New Zealand has a population
of 3.8 million and Wales one of 2.6 million). And, despite their small
numbers of tourists–Wales attracts 980,000 annual overseas visitors
and New Zealand 1.7 million–tourism is extremely important to the
economies of both countries. Although agriculture is responsible for
50% of all New Zealand’s exports, tourism is its biggest industry and
largest employer, earning NZ$4.2 billion in foreign exchange earnings
(TNZ, 2000a). Similarly, Wales’ dependence on tourism is scarcely
matched by any other country in Europe and it is more important to the
Welsh economy than to the economies of England, Scotland and North-
ern Ireland. Tourism spending contributes more than £2 billion directly
to the Welsh economy–equivalent to 7% of GDP and directly and indi-
 22 JOURNAL OF PROMOTION MANAGEMENT

rectly provides 10% of the Welsh workforce (WTB, 2000). The sector
makes a particularly important contribution to the rural areas of both
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countries, which have found it difficult to attract a more diversified

economy. Moreover, the core of the tourism industry in both is com-
prised of large numbers of family owned and operated micro-busi-
nesses, often under-capitalised and producing low rates of return upon
capital. Not every business is a growth business and the rationale for
many is not always economic, but based on life-style choice or as a sup-
plementary income in marginal economies (WTB, 2000; Ryan, 2002,
Jones and Haven-Tang 2005).
In addition, that of a more established, wealthier and more powerful
neighbour–Australia and England–overshadows the tourism industries
of these countries, both of which have a very small share of voice in the
global marketplace. Share of voice is driven by a number of factors, in-
cluding integration across all marketing activities, consistent brand po-
sitioning and the influencing of partners’ and other organisations’
promotional activities in the marketplace. New Zealand’s competitor
set includes Australia (due to its close proximity), Canada, South Africa
and Ireland (as a result of their similar landscape and features) and Viet-
nam, Cuba and the South Pacific (undiscovered “new” destinations). Of
these, its primary competitors (Canada, South Africa, Ireland and Aus-
tralia) have at least doubled their promotional spend over the last five
years. The main rival, Australia, not only has a major NTO–the Austra-
lian Tourist Commission–but six states that spend NZ$26 million per
annum domestically–some, individually, as much as New Zealand’s to-
tal budget (Piggott, 2001). In addition, both Hong Kong and Singapore
are strong competitors with proactive, targeted National Tourist Offices
supported by the strong marketing presence of their key stakeholder
partners of Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines (Piggott, 2001; Ooi,
2002, 2004). In the case of Wales, the key competitors are England,
Scotland and Ireland, all of which have greater marketing muscle and a
more established brand. For both New Zealand and Wales, their global
marketing campaigns needed, therefore, not only to position the coun-
tries, but also to address the share of voice disadvantage by extending
promotional funds and activity. Co-operative promotion holds the key
for both if they are to meet their ambitious campaign goals. In New Zea-
land’s case, to achieve a strong, global brand, doubling tourism receipts
to NZ$3 billion by 2005 (Warren and Thompson, 2000) and recovering
ground lost to Australia, New Zealand’s closest competitor (TNZ,
2000b). The Wales Tourist Board has similarly ambitious targets as the
National Assembly for Wales (NAFW) government is seeking to in-
 Nigel J. Morgan and Annette Pritchard 23

crease tourism’s share of Wales’ GDP to 10% by 2006 and to strengthen

brand presence in key overseas markets, particularly the USA (NAFW,
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2000).

Identifying and Crafting the Brand Values

The first stage in the process of positioning or repositioning any tour-

ism destination brand is to establish the core values of the destination
and its brand–these should be durable, relevant, communicable and
hold saliency for both stakeholders and potential tourists. This process
should also consider just how contemporary or relevant the brand is to
today’s tourism consumer and how it compares with its key competi-
tors. Before either TNZ or the WTB created their respective brand vi-
sions for New Zealand and Wales, they initiated a series of research
projects that surveyed local businesses, regional economists, destina-
tions with similar programmes and previous visitors–as well as tourists
who had never actually been to the countries. This process–similar to
recent exercises conducted by the brand developers of, amongst other
places, Western Australia (Crockett and Wood, 1999, 2002), Louisiana
(Slater, 2002), Oregon (Curtis, 2001), and Switzerland and Hawaii
(Piggott, 2001)–enabled the relevant brand managers to build brands
with value and salience with stakeholders and with existing and poten-
tial consumers.
The next phase in defining the destinations’ positioning was to define
what the countries represented and to determine how this should be
translated into brand personalities. To take the case of New Zealand
first, the branding consultants’ research concluded that the outside
world saw it as being full of green hills, sheep and aggressive Maori
warriors and somewhat “boring.” This is very different to how New
Zealanders see their country and it became clear that this problem
needed to be addressed via a better usage of images and representation
of the brand to shift perceptions. The outcome of the research was a re-
vised platform on which to plan New Zealand’s communication–”New
Pacific Freedom.” It identified that New Zealand is rich in four assets:
landscape; people; adventure; culture. Its revised positioning was thus
to be “an adventurous new land and an adventurous new culture on the
edge of the Pacific Ocean” (Piggott, 2001).
New Zealand did conjure up notions of a relatively undiscovered, un-
touched land and having the word “New” in its title has positive conno-
tations of modernity. As Maurice Saatchi, the founder partner of M & C
 24 JOURNAL OF PROMOTION MANAGEMENT

Saatchi (who developed New Zealand’s original global campaign),

comments:
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As the world becomes increasingly “manufactured,” the world’s

nations have become more and more homogenous. It’s become al-
most impossible to find meaningful differentiation. But New Zea-
land is different. It’s an authentic country. New Zealand doesn’t
come pre-packaged or prepared. New Zealand is real. (cited in
Piggott, 2001, p. 52)

The aim is to position New Zealand as a place (and indeed, an ethos)

shaped by its inhabitants over time. The brand is “New Zealand,” its
brand essence is “connection” and its positioning is “Being at One.”
The values behind “Being at One” are contemporary and sophisticated,
innovative and creative, spirited and free-emotive expressions that are
combined against the backdrop of New Zealand’s stunning landscape.
This is a landscape that allows you to express yourself through activities
and experiences and which contrasts sharply with the daily experiences
of many of its visitors who live in some of the world’s most overpopu-
lated and polluted metropolitan centres. The long-term brand essence
and positioning should not be confused with the less permanent cam-
paign pay-off line or tagline; “100% Pure New Zealand.” This is the
principal campaign line, although a number of derivatives and exten-
sions are also in operation such as “100% Pure Romance,”, “100%
Pure Spirit” and “In Five Days You’ll Feel 100%.” The 100% logo in-
corporates an image of the countries’ two islands (North and South)
whilst the strapline “100% Pure New Zealand” seeks to qualify a num-
ber of experiences and scenes as being “typically” or “100%” “Pure
New Zealand.” The theme of 100% and purity is echoed in all the visu-
als and the copy of the material, with the scenery, its wines and foods, its
people and its experiences being seen as being untainted, unadulterated,
unaffected and undiluted (Morgan, Pritchard and Piggott, 2002; Piggott,
Morgan and Pritchard, 2004).
The process in Wales was very similar, as was the marketing chal-
lenge (Pride, 2002). A specialist brand consultancy reviewed previ-
ously commissioned perceptual research and undertook new qualitative
work, which involved opinion-formers and influencers both inside and
outside Wales. Considerable research was also undertaken amongst
Wales’ priority target audiences, both in the UK and overseas which re-
vealed that the perceptions of Wales amongst UK consumers were
vastly different to those of international audiences. In addition, it also
 Nigel J. Morgan and Annette Pritchard 25

underlined that the consumer needs and experiences connected with do-
mestic holidays or short breaks were very different to holidays abroad.
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In international markets, Wales is often seen as just another part of Eng-

land and does not have such a well-established identity as Scotland and
Ireland, a problem compounded by the fact that, until 1992, Wales’ in-
ternational marketing had rested with the British Tourist Authority.
On a more positive note, however, research has consistently sug-
gested that potential overseas visitors have few negative perceptions of
Wales and are interested in Wales’ language, Celtic heritage and peo-
ple, who they feel to be particularly welcoming. By contrast, in the UK
market Wales’ image was often negative, although the destination
does have a very loyal customer base with a high percentage of repeat
visitors. Unfortunately, amongst potential new visitors to Wales it was
often perceived as being down market, the Welsh were sometimes per-
ceived as being unfriendly, some thought that Wales lacked quality ac-
commodation and that there was little to do. Others felt that Wales
offered nothing distinctive within the UK–it was a land of mountains,
lakes and beaches but others in Scotland and England were more famil-
iar. Yet the research also revealed that this was largely a perceptual
problem since visitors to Wales went away with very different views.
They felt that Wales was unspoiled, had a strong sense of community,
which translated into a safe holiday environment and that the Welsh
people were genuine and down to earth. In addition, visitors loved
Wales’ green and spectacular scenery and confirmed that in comparison
with similar destinations, Wales is much more accessible (Pride, 2002).
During the research process, the WTB also endeavoured to establish
what people wanted from a holiday or short break and identified a need
to escape from stress in the domestic market. Many within the target
markets lived and worked in an urban environment with intense pres-
sures on space and time–on the road, in the office and at home. The
prime motivation for the break was a desire to put something back into
their lives, to relax, to recharge the batteries, to rebuild relationships and
to revive their spirits. On the basis of this research, the WTB decided
that the domestic brand positioning for Wales should be “natural re-
vival” or “naturally reviving.” Wales would be promoted as being un-
spoiled, down to earth, with traditional values, genuine, green and
beautiful, providing physical and spiritual revival–all hidden on Eng-
land’s doorstep. The short hand for this idea was “Wales puts back into
your life what life take out–the antidote to every day life.” In overseas
markets, the WTB decided that the potentially more powerful position-
ing of “Inspiring Recreation” was more appropriate to consumer needs
 26 JOURNAL OF PROMOTION MANAGEMENT

and yet was compatible and complementary to the UK positioning. The

“Land of Nature and Legend” platform for all consumer communica-
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tion was eventually selected and brand guidelines were developed to

position Wales as passionate and spiritual, honest, welcoming and ro-
mantic–a land of nature and legend (Pride, 2002).

Implementing and Promoting the Brands

TNZ began its global campaign in 1999 by phasing a new corporate

identity into its activity internationally and launching a campaign with
the simple message: “100% Pure New Zealand” (TNZ, 2000a). The
brand was launched market by market between July 1999 and February
2000 to coincide with seasonal promotional opportunities. Advertising
centred on above-the-line activity; mainly TV and print (magazines)
and the executions showcased New Zealand’s diverse landscapes, peo-
ples, cultures and tourism activities (see Morgan and Pritchard, 2002).
The key markets for media activity were Australia, Japan, USA, UK,
Germany and Singapore. The largest numbers of visitors to New Zea-
land are generated from these regions and visitors from Japan and Ger-
many are amongst the highest spenders bringing much needed foreign
exchange earnings into the economy (Piggott, 2001). Of course, suc-
cessful branding is not realised by advertising alone and when niche
destination players have tiny budgets this is particularly apparent. For all
destinations, interactive media, direct marketing and events capitalisation
will do more for a country than an advertising campaign ever can. The
prime targets of the New Zealand brand are so-called “interactive trav-
ellers”–people young in body or heart who love travel, seek new experi-
ences and enjoy the challenge of new destinations. These consumers are
highly influential opinion-formers who could exert significant influ-
ence and make New Zealand a fashionable or famous destination. Such
consumers are often very web-wise and significantly, the WWW is inte-
gral to the New Zealand brand, complementing other advertising and
public relations activities and media.
The destination cyber scene is highly competitive and the current
challenge is for destinations to convert e-browsers into e-buyers and,
above all to match and where possible, exceed other e-tailer experiences
(Morgan, Pritchard and Abbott, 2001). Destinations have to try to con-
vey a sense of experiencing the place (through web cams, weather up-
dates, music clips, oral histories, collection highlights, virtual tours,
etc.) and the brand rather than merely delivering a site encounter. The
award-winning TNZ website (http://www.newzealand.com/travel/) was
 Nigel J. Morgan and Annette Pritchard 27

extensively redesigned in September 2001, following research on us-

ers’ preferences and views of the site. In addition, the new design more
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closely reflected the visual values associated with Being at One in a cre-
ative and operational sense. An intuitive navigation system was re-
quired in order to disseminate the vast amount of information on the
site. The new site enabled web users to easily access and explore pages
about specific topics and regions and at the time of writing there are
4,500 operators linked to the site, assisting it to attain high search engine
rankings.
The visually attractive website is user friendly and navigable and
above all stimulates interest and provokes reactions, encouraging the
average visitor to the website to stay for 13 minutes and visit over 20
pages. Such interactive appeals help to explain why the website attracts
more than 65,000 unique visitors each month. Web visitors can down-
load and send copies of the New Zealand adverts and photographs of
natural environments as e-postcards–adding to New Zealand’s conver-
sational appeal, celebrity and anticipation value. A further attraction is
the website’s promotion of “New Zealand, Home of Middle-Earth,”
capitalising on The Lord of the Rings trilogy which was solely filmed in
New Zealand and which associated the country with adventure and
breath-taking, otherworldly scenery over a three-year period (Piggott,
Morgan and Pritchard 2004). The website text comments:

With stunning photographs and interviews with the cast and crew
of the films, learn why New Zealand was the only landscape on
earth that could have provided the locations for Tolkien’s Middle
Earth. This behind the scenes journey is broken into five parts
which focus on the interesting parallels between the fictional
world and the real life country and people that helped realise it.
Experience New Zealand, Home of Middle-earth. (http://www.
newzealand.com/travel/en/about-nz/culture/lotr/nz-home-of-middle-
earthfeature.cfm)

Both the “Nature and Legend” (overseas) and the “Wales Two Hours
and A Million Miles Away” (domestic) campaigns that resulted from
the research in Wales also extensively utilised the WWW (www.
visitwales.com) and PR activities. These included an initiative in 1999/
2000 that capitalised on the Welsh diaspora’s spiritual connections to
the home country in the Millennium year (see Morgan, Pritchard and
Pride 2002). In the same year, Wales became the first overseas country
to host the American Association of Travel Writers’ Annual Conven-
 28 JOURNAL OF PROMOTION MANAGEMENT

tion. This PR coup provided an unique opportunity to showcase Wales’

tourism products and generated extensive editorial coverage for Wales
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in the USA, an additional platform for further synergistic advertising

activities.
Closer to home, the WTB also developed a number of innovative PR
ideas such as driving dirty, grimy vans through London and Birming-
ham with the line “Clean Air is 2 Hours Away–Wales/Cymru, Two
Hours and a Million Miles Away” finger written on their rear windows.
They also distributed air fresheners to London taxi drivers emblazoned
with the line “Real Fresh Air is only 2 Hours Away–Wales/Cymru, Two
Hours and a Million Miles Away” and sponsored workmen on Lon-
don’s orbital motorway (the M25) to wear raingear bearing the same
strapline (Pride, 2002). Such PR activities attracted considerable press
coverage and synergised with the creative applications developed for
each domestic target segment, all linked by a very distinctive creative
style and supported by the strap line–“Wales Two Hours and A Million
Miles Away.”
The poster, television and direct marketing executions showed black
and white images of people within the target markets in stressful every-
day situations and contrasted these with evocative, colourful images of
the same people being “revived” in Wales. A final PR coup was the
WTB’s success in securing the world-renowned Welsh rock band, the
Manic Street Preachers’ song “A Design for Life” as the campaign
theme tune. The WTB campaigns achieved significant stand out from
other destination campaigns and despite very challenging marketing
conditions, achieved encouraging results. Wales’ share of trips and
spend increased. Domestic brochure enquiries increased from 140,000
in 1998 to 240,000 in 1999 and recent monitoring research reveals in-
creases in the awareness and ranking of Wales as a holiday or short
break destination. In total, the campaign won 15 national and interna-
tional awards including the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Travel
Industry Groups and Multi-Media Campaign of the Year Award in
1998–beating off competition from such recognised brands as Virgin
Atlantic, British Airways and Thomson Holidays (Pride, 2002).

CONCLUSION

The success of the branding initiatives of small countries like New

Zealand and Wales shows that destinations can indeed become brands
that have emotional appeal. That does not mean, however, that it is easy
 Nigel J. Morgan and Annette Pritchard 29

to build and promote a strong destination travel brand. Managers have

to overcome both the politics and the paucity challenges–outsmarting
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rather than outspending their competitors. It takes patience to establish

brand reputations and building a powerful destination brand is a long-
term effort, which more often than not yields incremental and not expo-
nential results. Of course, there are destination brands that have seem-
ingly emerged from obscurity to achieve instant stardom. Such rapid
elevation to celebrity status, however, often owes much to a culmina-
tion of long-term economic, political, social and cultural factors. The
apparently effortless appearance of Ireland as a “cool”, fashionable des-
tination, for instance, is the result of over twenty years of economic
turnaround, coupled with the breakthrough of Irish culture (especially
the performing arts) onto the world stage. Often such instant stardom
also belies long-term marketing activity and investment built on de-
tailed marketing research, planning and consistent positioning. Ireland
has continuously invested heavily in product development and in its
marketing activities and today considerably outspends all of its compet-
itor UK destinations in the key markets.
Certainly, those destinations that have emerged as brand winners do
have a number of common features–some of which can be seen in the
case studies of New Zealand and Wales. They are based on a vision
which is founded on intensive stakeholder, consumer and competitor
research and which is expressed with care and discipline in everything
that communicates the brand’s personality. Once the brand personality
has been identified, marketers must have the courage to stay with the
brand’s essence–whilst refinements may be made to how the values are
expressed in the brand architecture, the essentials of the brand personal-
ity should remain consistent.
The secret is to continually evolve and enrich the original brand per-
sonality, building on the initial strengths to strengthen their appeal and
to broaden the market. Spain, for example, wove culture, heritage and
an emerging reputation for modern architecture into its original brand
personality based around sun and sand. Likewise, Ireland has added cul-
ture, “coolness” and quality to its established identity as a laid back,
friendly destination and Australia has added sophistication and a cos-
mopolitan dimension to its youthful, fun, nature-oriented personality.
In both New Zealand and Wales, the promise is to offer the tourist an
authentic experience, although there is still work to be done to move
both countries to a positioning of combining their brand essence (land-
scape) with a point of difference that no other destination in the world
possesses. This could be more strongly sought through the strength of
 30 JOURNAL OF PROMOTION MANAGEMENT

New Zealand’s indigenous Maori culture and their spiritual connection

with the land and Wales’ unique living language (the oldest in Europe)
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and Celtic heritage. Brand campaigns, however, take time to evolve and
the creative approach adopted by both our case studies is currently at the
stage of combining their brand essence with emotional benefits. Both
are moving very much in the right direction and their marketing teams
are seeking to further develop the brands beyond the current year.
Whilst much of its discussion has focused on branding, promotion
and PR, this paper has also noted that country branding is not merely a
rational marketing activity but a political act based on issues such as lo-
cal pride. Tourism offers communities the potential to build both identi-
ties and viable economies–and thus attracts significant government
attention. Both TNZ and the WTB have risen to the task of being the pri-
mary front line promoter for their respective destinations. However, as
government financing continues to be squeezed it is critical that NTOs
maintain their roles as co-ordinators of promotional resources. Unless
they take command of both branding and product development, in a
changing and confused stakeholder market, the large operators and
transportation companies will simply take to the market what they be-
lieve is the most appealing product (Morgan, Pritchard and Piggott,
2003). This will be both at the expense of small players within the in-
dustry and the dilution of the national brand identity that the NTO has
sought to build.
In a world where a handful of major countries attract almost three-
quarters of international tourist arrivals, most destinations will at best
be niche players competing on the margins. They will be reliant on ef-
fective, targeted branding strategies that have the potential to squeeze
maximum value from their small budgets. This is a difficult but by no
means an impossible task–particularly if the power of industry partners
and non-traditional media such as the WWW can be harnessed. Clearly,
NTOs need to work with bodies on a collaborative and integrative basis
outside traditional advertising. This is particularly true of niche destina-
tions with a small share of voice. Such destinations must be alive to alter-
natives to advertising and focus on the branding opportunities offered by
events, sports, cultural and political activities. For example, events in
Wales such as the hosting of the Ryder Cup in 2010 or the filming of
The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand all provide worldwide interest
and platforms for PR and promotional campaigns. NTOs must also look
to the future to consider the opportunities offered through interactive
media, digital television (video on demand; interactive booking) and the
WWW (itinerary planning and “look and book”). These media cannot
 Nigel J. Morgan and Annette Pritchard 31

be ignored as, not only do they interactively engage visitors pre-trip,

they also provide direct marketing opportunities for relationship build-
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ing, which can be resurrected and sustained post-trip. The potential of

such opportunities deserves much more attention from both academics
and practitioners, as does the role of joint destination marketing partner-
ships.

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Received: July 28, 2003

Revised: June 15, 2005
Accepted: July 1, 2005

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