Place of Origin Branding: Towards Reconciling the Requirements and Purposes of Destination Marketing and Export Marketing

Facing high competitive intensity and a rapid rise in tourism activity and export trade, many businesses have turned to their place of origin (PO) as a point of positive differentiation (Johansson 1988; Echtner and Ritchie 1993). This PO effect, often associated with a country, but increasingly a state or city (Thode and Maskulka 1998), has led to coordination of campaigns which promote positive PO images in order to support goods and services in external markets. At the same time, the importance of creating images suitable for marketing tourism destinations has been highlighted by a range of studies noting the strong relationship between place image and tourists’ purchase behaviour (Pearce 1982; Selby and Morgan 1996; Echtner and Ritchie 1993). To date, however, little attention has been given to the question of whether these two PO branding roles are complementary or might be potentially conflicting.