Evaluation of the Phantasm and Branding of Tourism Destinations (case study: South Khorasan Province, Iran)

Nowadays, the tourism branding has such importance for governments that annually they spenda lot of financial resources to building the brands although their efforts don’t reach to thedesirable results. This study aims at evaluating the phantasm and branding of tourist destinationsin the South Khorasan Province in Iran. An applied qualitative methodology was used to carryout the data foundation analysis. 100 tourists, who had visited the South Khorasan Province,were interviewed. In the interviews, the identification and assessment of tourist phantasm weredetermined for each county and accordingly it was suggested to establish the requiredinfrastructure, and services according to tourists' view. The Results showed that phantasms suchas “agricultural products, desert hiking, higher education, astronomy and mineral resources” hada high priority in the building of tourist branding in the study area. Therefore, decision-makingand planning at macro level should define the Destination brand and at the micro level Provincetourism projects should be done in accordance with these brands and priorities.