Zimbabwe tourism destination brand personality: Tourists’ voices on the ground

• Published in: African journal of hospitality, tourism and leisure tourism and leisure, 2019-11, Vol.8 (special edition)
• Main Authors: Dr Farai Chigora, Prof Joram Ndlovu, Dr. Emmanuel Mutambara, Dr Joe Muzurura
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: brand personality; destination marketing organizations; perception; zimbabwe
• ISSN: 2223-814X

Brand personality has evolved to be a contemporary marketing concept that breaks or make positive image through perception management in tourism destinations. This study focused on the personality of the tourists who patronise the Zimbabwe tourism destination, looking at how their personality conforms to the personality that is reflected by the tourism destination. Destination marketing organizations have a certain personality they portray to the outside world with regards to their tourists’ destination, which contributes to an intention of visiting or not visiting that destination by the tourists. This study applied a QUAL to QUAN sequential mixed method, which started with a qualitative research then followed by a quantitative research. A qualitative research design helped in getting views and opinions from participants on the types of personalities they regard to be represented by most tourism destinations across the globe and contributed to the establishment of themes that were used in building a survey questionnaire for quantitative research. The results of the qualitative research revealed that personalities of tourism destinations can be categorized as being youthful, adventurous, aggressive, hostile, friendly and accommodating. A further quantitative research was carried out with a focus on the Zimbabwe tourism destination’s personality and the results revealed that there is a contradiction of personalities as tourists have a friendly personality but they regard the tourism destination as being hostile. Also the results informed that the tourism destination is viewed by most tourists as accommodating through hospitable people in the country. Lastly the responses enlightened that the Zimbabwe tourism destination has an accommodating personality as it accepts and caters for the needs of all the types of tourists, regardless of their nationality and race. The study recommends that there is a need for improved perception management through improved positive media publicity that informs potential tourists about the friendly personality of Zimbabwe as a desired tourism destination. There is also need for destination marketers to partner with various international agents to sell and promote a positive personality of the Zimbabwe tourism destination and its brand to the world.