ABSTRACT
Tourism destination management is a complicated task that needs often specific tools that are difficult to be copied directly from the rich and developed recourses of firm management. Destination branding (DB) has recently become one of the most popular topics among tourism researchers. It has been recognized that ‘branding is perhaps the most powerful marketing weapon available to contemporary destination marketers’ (Morgan & Pritchard, 2002, p. 11). However, the concept of DB seems to be vulnerable for strong criticism from different points of view, with probably the strongest argument given by Mundt, who goes so far, that he neglects the existence of a marketing tool that could be named ‘destination branding’, at least with regard to traditionally understood tourism destinations (Mundt, 2004). Also some other researchers point out numerous weaknesses of DB regarding its theoretical foundation (Seaton, 1997; Tasci & Kozak, 2006). Further on, absence of commonly accepted theory of DB might lead destination management practitioners to conduct chaotic and not efficient actions. This chapter, though, is aimed at underlining some potentials of DB that have not so far been strongly presented in tourism research literature, which should partially respond to arguments raised by critics of the concept. This is possible thanks to incorporating other popular concepts like relationship marketing, clustering or networking into DB ground. Those concepts, although popular among destination management researchers, have not been so far analyzed from the DB point of view. The chapter, looking for DB enhancement possibilities in other theoretical concepts, as well as in destination marketing practice, is actually not presenting new ways of branding of tourism places. On the contrary, there are examples of actions that are convergent with the concept presented here of destination brand licensing (DBL), known for many years, but a proper theoretical description seems to be missing. DBL is a new concept and has not so far been presented in the literature. Presented examples are chosen purposely to picture a variety of implementation of DBL actions in differ-
ent countries and in different conditions. Those actions are also implemented by different entities ranging from destination management organizations (DMOs) and public authorities to private sector companies.
