Country and destination image : similar or different image objects

Abstract

Country Image and Destination Image research exist as two parallel research tracks with almost no cross-references although the concepts refers to almost the same area of applied marketing, namely export products to international consumer markets. In this paper we aim to determine how Country Image and Destination Image refer to the same image objects. Concepts related to Country Image are organized in a hierarchical framework where country image is seen as an image pool for product related image concepts. Similarly Destination Image can be seen as an umbrella concept for different geographical units, which can be organized in a vertical framework. By combining these two frameworks we claim that there is substantial overlap between the two concepts with regard to the objects they refer to.