Effective Factors in Management Strategies for Sustainable Branding in Coastal Destinations (Case Study: Chabahar Coastal Zone)

Given the critical importance of branding, tourism destinations seek to attract broader support in social, environmental, and managerial dimensions and set their management methods. To accomplish such goals and to establish an optimal management approach, one needs to identify the influential factors. This paper aimed to establish a sustainable branding management strategy for coastal tourism destinations by identifying influential factors. The resource-based theory was used besides the METASWOT technique to establish a sustainable branding management strategy in Chabahar coastal zone. This mixed descriptive-analytical study was conducted on a statistical population of 84 experts and tourists. It used tested indices of a sustainable brand. The resource-based approach in sustainable branding included a set of assets and abilities that were available and useful in identifying threats and opportunities while reacting to them. This set was considered based on the “valuability,” “scarcity,” “non-imitability,” “non-replaceability of resources,” and “internal capabilities.” Besides, Chabahar coastal zone was compared to Oman, Kish, and Qeshm to identify the competitive dimensions. Given the tendency of local people and government towards economic development in Chabahar and the results from other qualitative and quantitative studies, it can be suggested that Chabahar coastal zone had the capacities required for collaborative and community-centered management. Based on the results, the optimal management strategy for this zone was resource-based, collaborative, and community-centered.