DEFINING LOYALTY OF LOCAL INHABITANTS TOWARDS A TOURIST DESTINATION BRAND

Successful development of a tourist destination is determined by proactive activities of all destinations' stakeholders. Besides tourists, the key tourist destination stakeholders are: employees in tourism, organizations in tourism as creators of tourism offer, local authorities, investors in tourist capacity and local inhabitants. The paper builds on the postulation that local inhabitants employed in tourism are the key ingredient that contributes to developing distinguishing elements of a destination and differentiates it from other tourist destinations. Based on previous findings and field research, the paper discusses how local inhabitants, especially ones that are employed in tourism, contribute to the development of a tourist destination brand. With that purpose in mind, field research has been conducted using the questionnaire on a purposive sample of several tourist destinations in Croatia. Brand awareness positively influences brand value of a tourist destination and consequently brand value positively influences brand loyalty of a tourist destination. All this contributes to the development of a tourist destination brand. The paper focuses only on several antecedents of building a tourist destination brand, and this is perceived as paper limitation. But, nonetheless, the paper has indicated new research streams that should be applied and, also, research results offer ideas for managerial structures in tourism that are focused on developing a tourist destination brand.