JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

Phu Quoc, the largest island in Vietnam, is planned to be one of the special economic and administrative centres of Vietnam by the year of 2030. As a long-term strategy, understanding the tourist’s behaviour has become a necessity and an important element of the success of the place. Despite the significance of destination branding and destination image in both academia and the industry of tourism, there has been still scantiness in studying about destination branding and image of a destination brand in a way to build a strong action plan for the development of tourism in Phu Quoc island by the year of 2030. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among brand associations (i.e. cognitive, affective, and unique image components) and tourists’ future behaviours in the island of Phu Quoc. The study also aims at providing some recommendations for the development of the island of Phu Quoc island from the perspective of destination branding in a way to build up a strong brand image for the destination. This research used an online questionnaire to collect data by sending out in Google® Forms to members of Vietnamese tourism forums, fan-pages, etc., aiming at collecting responses from people who had been to Phu Quoc island during the last one year from the survey. Multiple regression analysis was utilized to test the impact of brand association components on tourist’s future behaviours in the particular case of Phu Quoc island. The results confirmed that tourists’ future intention was influenced by two out of the three types of brand associations (cognitive and affective image), whereas the unique image had no significant impact on the tourists’ intention. Based on the results, a brand positioning strategy was proposed for the island of Phu Quoc. In addition, the findings of this study provided several critical implications for further study on the socio-cultural effects on the formation of the brand associations of a destination, especially its unique image element.