International Tourism Branding in the Knowledge Economy: Challenges, Opportunities, strategies, and stakeholder roles

This paper is a thorough analysis of the challenges, opportunities, strategies and the role of stakeholders in international tourism branding in the knowledge economy. Leaving behind the old fashioned advertising based paradigms, the current state of tourism branding requires dynamic knowledge and management of the industry to achieve competitiveness in the global market. They are based on thematic analysis of qualitative-exploratory research involving interviews of ۱۴ leading branding and marketing experts to provide new insights. The reliability of coding was established through a test-retest coefficient of ۸۹.۳۳ percent. The results show that there is a massive potential in digital technologies, indigenous knowledge production, community involvement, knowledge-based brand cluster formation, and incorporation of new technologies (e.g., AR/VR, data analytics) to enhance competitive advantage. Nonetheless, the significant obstacles are data and technology infrastructure deficiency, inability to convert knowledge resources into brand value, poor brand governance, and conservative stakeholder reluctance to innovation. Strategically, the article supports the brand governance models that are knowledge-based and are constructed on the three-way cooperation between government, academia, and industry. Most importantly, the digital training of local labor forces and the introduction of knowledge-based metrics of brand evaluation The current research reinvents the position of the stakeholders: the tourists, as the "Knowledge Prosumers," the universities, as the "brand documenters," and the governments, as the facilitators of the smart governance. The fundamental innovation that we are offering is a combined structure that describes the tourism brand as a dynamic, rather than a promotional tool.

کلیدواژه ها:

Tourism ، brand ، knowledge economy