Benefits from service bundling in destination branding: enhancing cooperation among operators in the hospitality industry

The literature on place branding has shown that the tourism industry is a critical component of the brand equity of places. Gnoth (2002) highlights the power of tourism as a determinant of country image perceptions. Gnoth developed a model to leverage a country brand through a tourism destination brand, where the services facilitating a tourism experience would be employed to develop a country brand across different industries. One of the main avenues through which tourism agencies develop the competitiveness of a place, and hence its equity, is service bundling, a practice which is gaining popularity in the tourism industry. The tourism operators’ product is more appealing when offered as a package than as a collection of individual services, sold at special pricing arrangements intended to offer better value for money. Nowadays tourism products are predominantly product-and-service bundles and customers can choose their favorite solution along a continuum with two extremes: entirely pre-packaged tourism products on one side and completely individual arrangements on the other side (Zins, 1998). Cooperation in a tourism destination is key to create effective service bundling. Dickinson and Ramaseshan (2006) observe that the tourism industry performance is positively and significantly influenced by cooperation among operators, and that higher performance has a positive impact on the brand image of a location. The brand image is positively influenced by cooperation, which helps the destination in being perceived as unique and well-connected. The main purpose of this paper is to shed light on the role of collaboration among tourism operators in place branding. We have chosen to focus our research on hoteliers because they represent a reference point for tourists, and hence a critical player in the tourism industry. Thanks to their close contact with customers, they can be the initiators or promoters of potential partnerships. We investigate the impact of benefits (economic and non-economic) achievable through service bundling on hoteliers’ attitude to networking, i.e. their willingness to collaborate with other organizations such as restaurants, theme parks, spas, etc. In other words, we want to test whether the perception of higher benefits through service bundling increases hoteliers’ propensity to cooperate. We interview a sample of 200 hoteliers located in Valle d’Aosta, a small Italian region which has been involved for a long time in promoting its destination as a brand. Hypotheses are tested mainly using linear regression.