engleski

Brand management of protected areas – case study: Plitvice lakes national park

The strategic management of a protected area brand (for example World heritage or national park) can help transmit the importance of perserving natural and cultural heritage while demonstrating the relevance of such sites ; strategically deployed, branding plays an essential role in the sustainability of parks and protected areas. This paper deals with the theoretical basis of branding of protected areas and discusses the issue of branding World heritage sites and national parks, with an example of Plitvice lakes national park, world known brand that developed as such without strategic brand planning and management, by leaving out many elements of branding process, but still resulting as an example of how to brand a protected area. Also, no primary research regarding Plitvice lakes has ever been done ; Plitvice lakes have created a brand without a permanent strategy, and as it (despite the lack of branding strategy) became the brand, today it doesn’t capitalize enough on the opportunities to appropriately transmit their brand to the visitor at visitor contact points, thereby slowing down the process of growing positive brand equity. Within the above mentioned, if not conducted as a planned activity, how is it possible to successfully brand a protected area? Does it help if the site is marked as World heritage site and could that be reason enough for recognizing a site as a brand and how long does it take to become a brand? Once the brand is created, in order to maximise benefits aid has to be offered to protected area management in determining how to use their brands to their maximum benefit future research needs to closely examine the dimensions of visitor brand awareness and knowledge. The aim of this work is to find out if protection status oft he site matters to tourists, does it affect the decision to visit the area and does the national park and world heritage brand has a stronger effect on tourists than other protected areas.

Protected area ; Branding ; Plitvice lakes

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