Research On The Role Of Government In Governing The Tourism Destination Branding

On entering the21st century, the tourism destination image is gradually becoming much more significant in terms of enhancing the tourism destination competitiveness. Accordingly, the branding governance on the tourism destination whose aim is to build a positive and attractive tourism destination image has been an important field of the management and marketing on the tourism destination.The State Council of the People’s Republic of China defined tourism to be the strategic pillar industry in the several opinions of the State Council about reinforcing the development of tourism, which was issued in2009, and it was obvious that the document highlighted the importance of tourism in the national economy. In fact, Tourism destination, as we all know, is the carrier of tourism activity. The positive and unique tourism destination image is not only a key factor of enhancing the tourism destination competitiveness, but also a valuable tool for its international marketing. Thus, the branding governance on the tourism destination plays a crucial role in China tourism industry.The successful experiences of the branding governance on the tourism destination demonstrate that the government should plays a significant part in this field, however, this issue hasn’t been concerned and addressed by the academia. Therefore, this dissertation explores what responsibilities the government should undertake during the process of the branding governance on the tourism destination with the government role as point-cut and also further studies how to perform such kinds of responsibilities.In the context of the branding governance on the tourism destination, government factually refers to tourism administrative institutions. The objective, the concerns, the thoughts, the approaches and the conclusions of this research follow as: the objective of the study is to define the role of the tourism administrative institution during the process of the branding governance on the tourism destination. And the concrete concerns of the study refer to:(1) the nature of tourism destination image as one kind of public goods and correspondingly what impacts this nature will exert on the branding governance on the tourism destination;(2) the objective, nature, participants, and tasks of the branding governance on tourism destination;(3) the pattern of the branding governance network on tourism destination;(4) the role definition of the tourism administrative institutions in the branding governance on the tourism destination.This study consists of two parts---theory research and empirical research. The path of theory research is:First, analyzing systematically the relevant literatures at home and abroad, afterwards, illustrating the objective, the nature, the participants and related tasks; constructing the branding governance network on the tourism destination; defining the role of the tourism administrative institutions in the branding governance on tourism destination and deducing the role definition model. The path of empirical research is testifying the theory of the role definition model of the tourism administrative institutions and of the branding governance network on the tourism destination with the case of hospitable Shandong province as the case research.Applied research approaches of the study mainly refer to-literature research method, Delphi method, questionnaire survey, statistical analysis method, historical comparative method.The chief conclusions of the study includes:as the tourism destination image possesses the nature of public goods, to build a tourism destination image should be based on the thought of the branding governance on the tourism destination; tourism administrative institutions should play a significant role on this issue for the branding governance on the tourism destination lies in the field of the leading governance of the government; the participants of the branding governance on the tourism destination involve the tourism administrative institutions, tourism business sectors, local residents, and other organizations, institutions and individuals, and these participants should strive together to perform duties of the branding governance through a governance network of all involvements; the branding governance on the tourism destination refers to two kinds of works which,on the one side, are to build and to maintain the governance network,on the other side, to market the tourism destination; the tourism administrative institutions should play a dominant role in building and maintaining the governance network, and define their different roles like suppliers and planers in the six parts of the marketing of the tourism destination.There are three possible innovative contributions:the first is the mechanism of the branding governance on the tourism destination, the second is the network of the branding governance on the tourism destination with tourism administrative institutions as the core member, and the third is the role definition model of the tourism administrative institutions in the branding governance on the tourism destination.