Art-event image in city brand equity: mediating role of city brand attachment

Abstract

Purpose All touristic cities have their unique attributes to showcase and differentiate themselves from others. This distinctive attribute is the unique selling product or tourism product of a particular city. It could be an art form, culture, regional climate, food and festival. Literature indicates that the identity of the entire city would be affected by such tourism products. The purpose of this study is to analyse the influence of the ‘image’ of an Art-event to city branding. The study also examines the mediating role of ‘city attachment’ in the relationship between event image and city brand equity. Design/methodology/approach In all, 432 samples have been collected from visitors to one of the biggest contemporary art events in India – the “Kochi-Muziris Biennale – 2018,” conducted in the city of Cochin, situated in Kerala, the southernmost state of India. Findings Results show that the direct relationship between event image and city brand equity is stronger than the hypothesised path through the mediating role of city attachment. Research limitations/implications This study provides a better understanding of the event image and its importance in creating the host city’s brand equity. It contributes to both the practitioners and tourism researchers. Originality/value This study looks at the event image through functional and affective aspects and its influence on city attachment and city brand equity.

Opera participants’ perceptions of brand resonance

“…The level of a customer's cognitive, emotional and behavioural investment in direct brand interactions (Hollebeek, 2011) attached to a brand will have a high intention to return, and brand attachment has a strong mediating effect. Jawahar et al (2020) finds event image having a positive relationship with brand attachment, and destination attachment playing a mediating role between event image and destination loyalty. They saw music enhanced people's behavioural intentions to recommend and revisit an artist's gallery.…”

“…Jawahar et al. (2020) finds event image having a positive relationship with brand attachment, and destination attachment playing a mediating role between event image and destination loyalty.…”

Memorable experience, tourist-destination identification and destination love

“…Many tourists travel to different cities every year, experience them, and evaluate their attractiveness, so that they can identify themselves with those cities. Tourist cities' practitioners and policymakers should then oblige themselves to periodically assess chosen tourism cities in terms of tourist perception, as well as physical characteristics of destinations, which greatly influence the image of the cities, and consequently affect tourist behaviour, such as attachment to the city (Jawahar et al, 2020).…”

City Branding and Its Variables: The Evidence From Indonesia

“…Chan (2019) provided evidence that city brand equity and its variables, such as tourism attraction, accessibility, amenities, ancillary service, hedonism, novelty, local culture, refreshment, meaningfulness, involvement, city safety and comfort, city diversity, brand awareness, brand loyalty, proud to live, overall lifestyle is good, rather live here than anywhere else, and good reputation among residents. Besides, previous studies have investigated different aspects of city brand equity, such as that among visitor (Hussein, 2020;Lemarié and Domann, 2019;Munawir, 2019); among Citizens (Ginesta et al, 2020;Schumpp, 2020); and entrepreneurs (Chivandi et al, 2020;Oleinik, 2019) but studies on tourism management in the city brand equity are limited (Bonakdar and Audirac, 2020;Górska-Warsewicz, 2020;Jawahar, 2020). Tourism management recognizes the importance of increasing city brand equity in their area to their role as management.…”