The role of branding in creating a lasting image of Isfahan City, Iran among Tourists

Branding of tourism destination is a new strategy to attract tourists. This strategy is a beneficial tool for marketing of tourism destination because brand would give an identity and personality to tourism destination distinguishing it from other destinations. This study has been conducted to assess the role of branding in creating a lasting image of Isfahan City among tourists. This study is applied in terms of objective and survey in terms of methodology. To conduct this paper, questionnaires were distributed among 384 tourists (calculated by Cochran Formula) of Isfahan City in 2015. This study includes 6 hypotheses in terms of creating a lasting image of Isfahan City in tourists’ minds through branding of this city and all hypotheses were accepted in accordance with analysis of obtained data from gathered questionnaires through SPSS software. According to the obtained results of this study, awareness and knowledge of tourists about Isfahan and image of Isfahan as a tourism destination would lead to their satisfaction and loyalty toward the destination so that they might tend to visit Isfahan again or recommend others to visit this city. Finally, this paper proves that branding can be applied as regular frame to perceive effective mechanisms in satisfaction and loyalty of tourists.