Tourist loyalty and destination brand image perception: the case of Sunny beach resort, Bulgaria

Abstract

Research related to important marketing aspects of international tourism has increased significantly. The analysis and exploration of the concept of loyalty is gaining a significant attention in the tourism research during the last two decades. The main objectives of this research paper are: first to explore the tourist population structure of the Bulgarian Sunny Beach resort depending on the loyalty level of the tourists to Sunny Beach brand and to make an attempt for extracting a typology of the tourist segments. The second task of the research paper is to determine the brand image perception by the tourists with different level of loyalty and to identify the key attributes of the tourism product which distinguish the image of Sunny beach brand. The study analysis and conclusions are based on two probability samples- in seasons 2009 and 2010- stratified samples according to the variable “country of origin”. The study reveals differences in the image perceptions of loyal and disloyal tourists and points out that better understanding of the image perception by the loyal tourists can help the marketers to improve the destination branding strategy.