Brand Management in the Practice of Cross-Border Tourist Destinations

A common brand management of cross-border tourist destination provides the ability to efficiently consolidate competitive advantages to multiple destinations. A brand management for such areas is in the function of unifying the overall tourism through a recognizable tourist brand. The creation of a joint tourist brand of border areas helps to create competitiveness and a higher differentiation of the comprehensive tourist product in the global tourist market. The vision, based on the long-term aims of managing a recognizable tourist brand, helps the overall economic development of the area. To jointly manage the brand cross-border tourist destinations effectively it is necessary to achieve a synergy of tourism destinations. One possible approach is to design a specific model which brings together all the available resources of the area. This introduces a cluster concept which is a useful platform in creating an efficient marketing strategy. Such an approach encourages faster and more efficient social-economic integration. The presented research is based on the author’s model developed for an efficient evaluation of tourist resources on the Croatian-Slovenian border. Research was done through the future perspective of the development of the border area of the Karlovac County (CRO) and Southeast Slovenia (SLO) with the aim of creating a recognizable cross-border tourist product. Economic contribution is efficient tourism branding of different cultural border areas. The aim of the paper is to point out the possibility of brand management for cross-border tourist destinations on the basis of common and partial elements of recognition of the area