concept are crucial to the development and implementation of effective marketing strategies within the luxury goods sector.The marketing of luxury goods has become increasingly complex, being associated not only with conveying an image of quality, performance and authenticity, but also with attempting to sell an experience by relating it to the lifestyle constructs of consumers. The characteristics of luxury goods suggest that marketing within the sector is different from many other industries. Despite the amount of literature being ABSTRACT Although the defi nition of a ' luxury ' brand is open for debate, the natural evolution of luxury, with luxury brands fi rst being adopted by the affl uent and wealthy before inevitably being translated and reinterpreted down to mass markets, raises new challenges for marketing strategists. Luxury brands need to stay in front of luxury consumers, through the discovery of new and different ways to give expression to their desires. This paper discusses the fundamental difference between communication and connection, and identifi es a means of assuring the greatest longterm success for luxury marketers by connecting with the luxury consumer using brand-related experiences.

PurposeExperiential marketing is arguably marketing's most contemporary orientation, but as with many marketing innovations it has been largely overlooked by those involved in tourism and hospitality marketing and promotion. Whilst in many industries companies have moved away from traditional features and benefits approaches, to putting experiential marketing centre‐stage, marketing in the tourism and hospitality sectors does not appear to have explicitly engaged the theoretical issues involved. This raises the question what, if anything, does experiential marketing have to offer marketers in the disciplines of tourism and hospitality? In this paper, I will seek to introduce the experiential marketing debate and demonstrate how the questions raised by the concept are critical to an understanding of marketing theory and research within the tourism and hospitality sectors.Design/methodology/approachFollowing the authors previous publications which sought to investigate alternative paradigms for studying hospitality consumers, this research attempts to consider the practical applications of one such model.FindingsThe tourism and hospitality sectors cannot be seen to be immune to fundamental changes in the orientation of marketing. Innovative experience design will become an increasingly important component of tourism and hospitality firms core capabilities. Those who go beyond service excellence, and market experientially will lead the creation of value in the sector.Originality/valueProvides a framework as to how organisations might usefully implement an experiential marketing strategy.

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This paper discusses the impact of electronic commerce on the development of strong tourism destination brands. Electronic media have the potential to create strong direct links between individual tourism suppliers and their customers, thereby possibly undermining collective efforts to create strong destination brands. In addition, electronic media may have the potential to strengthen the process of destination brand creation, by facilitating interaction and cross-selling between complementary producers within a destination. A case study methodology is used to evaluate the recently developed Brand Western Australia (Brand WA) marketing campaign. This strategy attempted to develop a strong centralised tourism destination brand for the state of Western Australia and the paper reviews the branding strategy to date, the promotional and distribution channels used, and the challenges and opportunities faced by WA suppliers when using electronic channels on the Internet. It is concluded that despite the enormous growth in the use of electronic commerce, it is not being used to its full potential. Suppliers appear to be using the Internet in a random, disorganised, uncooperative way.