Managing Heritage Tourism Brand in South Africa: A Synthesis of Literature

Abstract

This paper aims to explore how branding essentials can foster or derail heritage tourism growth. Brand management capabilities support heritage tourism destinations such as South Africa to achieve competitive advantage in the global tourism marketplace. Heritage tourism destinations in Africa operate within a highly competitive environment as most of them offer identical products and services to their clientele. Unique historical and political backgrounds associated with particular geographical regions foster their heritage tourism growth. Subsequently, in South Africa, different forms of tourism that exist within the heritage tourism niche such as cultural tourism have gained immense popularity as they attract numerous domestic and international tourists to heritage tourism sites. Branding as a composite of numerous essentials including, but not confined to, brand essence, brand image and brand loyalty, is believed to be a key factor that can either stimulate or hinder heritage tourism growth in tourist destinations including South Africa. A conceptual model has been developed in this paper, based on the interlinkages between the key essentials of destination branding and how they influence heritage tourism growth. This paper posits that there is a strong relationship and interrelatedness between destination branding and heritage tourism growth.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Strategies for Sustaining Nature-Based Tourism amid Global Health Crises: A Global Perspective

“…Every destination is characterised by a unique positive or negative image that influences tourists' decision to visit/revisit it or not [139]. Gumede and Ezeuduji [141] contend that tourists are inclined to travel or not based on their positive or negative perceptions, while some may be indifferent based on a mixture (both positive and negative) of their perceptions. However, destination image may be descriptive or evaluative (multidimensional) as it is influenced by a multitude of factors based on tourists' perspectives [142,143].…”

“…Literature review as a research approach is a systematic method of collecting and synthesising previously researched areas [197]. This approach (commonly referred to as LSA) has been adopted, among many others, in the business [198,199] and tourism [141] spheres. A systematic review of literature, when conducted effectively, establishes a firm foundation for advancing knowledge and facilitating theory development [200].…”

Perspective Chapter: Igniting Cultural Heritage Tourism as Potential to Benefit Rural Communities in the Zululand District, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

“…Cultural heritage tourism is regarded as one of the local economic development strategies that cities, towns, and regions use to themselves using local resources and assets [10,11]. As such cultural heritage tourism is perceived as representing development opportunities with a potential of contributing to local economic development and beneficiation for communities that have taken initiatives to invest in developing cultural heritage products [3,[12][13][14].…”