DESTINATION BRAND IMAGE EVALUATION : A CASE STUDY OF MAHARASHTRA TOURISM

Global competition in tourism has led the DMOs to develop various strategies for marketing. This paper focuses on the branding image of state of India i.e. Maharashtra. Therefore there is need by the DMOs to take strong and positive steps for the marketing of Maharashtra tourism for altering its existing image. This research aims to evaluate the gap between experience and expectations of domestic and foreign tourists about the brand image of Maharashtra tourism. For this study data was collected from 435 domestic and 663 foreign tourists at the sample destinations by using purposive sampling. Data was analyzed by using paired t-test. The results indicate that there is a need of improvement in accessibility for domestic tourist which is core need for infrastructure development. It has suggested that for increasing the average length of stay of foreign tourist in state of Maharashtra range of tourism products can be promoted including culture, wildlife, cuisine, adventure sports etc.