Authors: Athina Nella, Anastasia Tzoumpa

Title: Destination personality as a key branding asset: preliminary evidence for a popular Greek destination (Milos island)

Abstract

Rich and distinct destination personalities are a valuable tool for Destination Management Organizations to strengthen brand building (Blain et al., 2005). Although brand personality has been acknowledged as an important branding and differentiation tool, the number of studies referring to destination brand personality were quite limited until recently (Kumar and Nayak, 2014, Bekk et al., 2016). Destination personality can be defined as the set of human characteristics associated with a destination (Ekinci & Hosany, 2006). During the last decade, significant contributions have been made in the field (e.g. Pereira et al., 2015; Souiden et al., 2019; Pool et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2019; Vinyals-Mirabent et al.. 2019). A number of researchers highlighted the importance of using destination specific and/or culture specific destination personality measurement scales (Kumar, 2016; Huang et al., 2017; Pan et al., 2017; Kumar & Nayak, 2018). Papadimitrou et al. (2015) were among the first researchers to study destination personality for a Greek destination (Patras).

In this vein, this paper attempts to extend relevant research with respect to Greek destinations and focus on the destination personality of Milos island, one of the most popular destinations of Cyclades, Greece. A survey was designed and implemented in the period March-April 2022 with main purpose to map the personality of Milos island. A fully structured questionnaire was used on the basis of the personality scale proposed by Gomez Aguilar et al. (2016) for Spanish destinations; the authors used Brand Personality Scale (BPS) proposed by Aaker (1997) to develop their own scale, consisting of 26 items. This scale was pilot tested and adjusted for the present survey focusing on Milos island.

Preliminary evidence, based on a sample of 115 respondents, show that the prevailing personality characteristics of Milos were the following: famous, charming, interesting, attractive, unique, true, safe, fascinating, hospitable while the least linked traits were indifferent, low budget, conservative, pioneer, eco-friendly. The island’s reputation and natural environment were among the primary factors influencing their choice to visit Milos while social media was one of the most important sources of information. In terms of perceived quality and overall satisfaction from their last visit to Milos Island respondents rated highly the island (4,07/5 and 4,15/5 respectively) though the perceived value for money was rated average (3,26/5). In terms of future behavioral intentions (revisit intention, word of mouth creation, positive social media engagement), respondents were very positively expressed, thus confirming positive relationships between service quality, satisfaction and behavioral intentions (Murphy et al., 2007; Xie & Lee, 2013; Baloglu et al., 2014; Nella and Christou, 2014; Souiden et al., 2017). Respondents also agreed that the destination has high awareness levels while facility improvement will lead to further enhancement of tourism demand. The role of self-congruence with the destination was also studied, with findings confirming a positive relationship between self-congruence, expectation levels and positive behavioral intentions (Pearson r >0,70). The study confirms that a strong destination personality can be a major marketing asset that DMOs should invest on to differentiate in the competitive tourism market.