Understanding the City Brand in the Regional Tourism Market Among College Students |
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Authors: | Chenchen Huang Keunyoung Oh Qiongyao Zhang Yun-Jung Choi |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Hospitality and Tourism at The State University of New York-Buffalo State, Caudell Hall 207, 1300 Elmwood Avenue , Buffalo , NY , 14222 , USA huangc@buffalostate.edu;3. Department of Fashion Textile Technology at The State University of New York-Buffalo State in Buffalo , NY , USA;4. The State University of New York-Binghamton University in Binghamton , NY , USA;5. Department of Human Ecology at the State University of New York College-Oneonta in Oneonta , NY , USA |
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Abstract: | This study focuses on the regional tourism market around Buffalo, NY to investigate the relative importance of city brand and other city attributes in tourists' decision making about where to visit for a short weekend trip. A content analysis was used to identify the four competitor cities of Buffalo and the key attributes that the cities possess to attract tourists in the regional driving tourism market. Within the context of destination choice-sets model, the relative importance of the key attributes including city brands was investigated through a choice-based conjoint analysis. Shopping opportunities was found as the most important attribute, followed by restaurant/food, culture/festivals, sports, nature-based attractions, and city brand. Based on the relative importance of the attributes at an individual level, three distinctive tourist segments—Food and Shopping Lovers, City-Driven Do-It-All Tourists, and Cultural Tourists—were generated from a K-means cluster analysis. Different city attribute profiles were identified for those five cities. Implications and suggestions were presented to promote more efficient marketing efforts for regional tourism destinations. |
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Keywords: | Regional tourism market choice-sets model city brand destination branding conjoint analysis |
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