TERRITORIAL BRANDING AND IMAGE IN TOURISM

Technologies for creating the image and branding of destinations, cities, regions have become relevant as strategic tools for the development and promotion of territorial tourism potentials. Repeated attempts have been made to visualize a single tourist brand for the whole of Russia. However, inconsistency of design principles, the complexity and versatility of both the very concept of a “tourist brand” and the territories determine the complexity of such tasks. And the brighter, more diverse, polycultural this or that territory, the richer its tourist potential, the more difficult it is to develop a universal form of visualization of its brand, it is more difficult to select a list of objects that could be positioned as its unique travel brands. Here we can turn to imagology is significant, which has not yet been properly implemented in the practice of theoretical and applied research in the problem of tourist branding. Imagology is a scientific discipline about the laws of creation, functioning, interpretation, perception and transformation of images of external objects and phenomena, primarily countries, regions, cities, peoples, cultures, etc.

At its core, a tourist brand aimed at forming an image of a territory (destination, city, country) or modeling a certain reality (meanings of the territory) in the mind of its addressee (consumer, potential tourist). The tourist branding technology as a tool for constructing the image of territory should to highlight its most significant objects, make them easy to remember, give them the character of a stable stereotype of space, link them into a single mental logical model "Name of the territory – Name of the object (s)" in the subconscious of a real or potential tourist. In this context, tourism brands in representation the regional tourism meanings perform an important function of formation and consolidation of associative rows with the territory – a set of symbols, images, associations, stereotypes, the sum of representations associated with the territory in the mass consciousness. That is, tourist brands are a kind of territorial product formed by “patterns of space” that can also act as a construct of territorial identity. The main meanings supported and represented through the territorial tourism brand are as follows:

1. demonstration of the territorial and cultural unity of the region, its identity and uniqueness:
2. strengthening the emotional connection of the addressee with the represented territory;
3. development of regional cultural, family, spiritual and moral values:
4. the formation of love, respect for the represented territory:
5. preservation and representation of its cultural and natural heritage.

To date, there is no single algorithm or a “formula for success” for creating the territorial tourist brands, and it is hardly advisable to develop them at all. However, the tourist brand must be designed in such a way as to have the proper effect on its addressee, to interest, to arouse the desire to visit and consume the tourist product of the territory. However, the tourist brand must be designed in such a way as to have the proper effect on its addressee, to interest, to arouse the desire to visit and consume the tourist product of the territory.

In the current issue of our journal, we tried to set some of the above tasks in the problematic field tourism and territorial branding technologies, to search for methodological foundations for their solution.