The Role of Tourism Experiences in Attaching Consumers to Regional Brands

This research aims at improving understanding of why and how the experience of visiting a region contributes to emotionally attaching tourists to place-based brands. Using attribution theory, the paper presents a set of hypotheses regarding the mediating role of brand attributions in the relationships between tourists’ experiences (pleasure, arousal, satisfaction) and their emotional attachments to place-based brands. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 3,460 visitors to fifteen international regions using wine (i.e., regional umbrella brands such as Bordeaux, Rioja, Tuscany, Napa, and Western Hills) as an example category. Findings – The results suggest that causal attributions fully mediate the influence of pleasure and satisfaction on brand attachments, whereas arousal has a direct effect; brand name strength, and place attachment enhance effects of the experience. The attachment mechanism presented in this paper aids tourism and wine managers in their mutual attempts to provide consumers with memorable affective experiences and in attaching them to brands.