ABSTRACT
As tourism expands around the globe, it brings new opportunities in destination marketing, yet one of the outcomes of the increasing number of available and accessible tourist destinations is a dilution of established destination identities and increased competition amongst emergent tourism sites. The relative substitutability in tourism products is well established and destinations offering a similar product at a similar price are highly interchangeable. For example, UK tourists in search of a moderately priced sun and sand experience will accept a range of alternatives – from Cyprus, to Turkey, Spain or Greece. As a result, the need for destinations to project a unique identity – to differentiate themselves from their competitors – is more critical than ever. But most destinations continue to project very similar images. How many ads do you see which portray blue seas, cloudless skies and endless golden beaches with a less than memorable strapline? Yet what does one Caribbean or Mediterranean island really have which is significantly different from its nearest neighbour? Certainly not sun and sand.
