O Papel da Imagem dos eventos Culturais na construção da marca de um destino Turístico: o caso do evento "Braga Romana"

In the past recent years the territorial management as a brand using marketing tools till now used by companies has been gaining ground. In that sense, more and more the people in charge of the territories have been proceeding to the destination branding in order to gain notoriety and differentiate themselves from their competitors. Although this importance has been increasing there are still gaps in the literature related to this mater, given that, the goal of this study is to understand what’s the role of cultural events in the brand building, image and perceived quality of a destination, applied to the specific case of the event “Braga Romana” in the city of Braga. A qualitative and quantitative investigation was carried out in order to understand what is the vision of those in charge for the areas under study, tourism and events and the perception of the event visitors. The results indicate that cultural events, more specifically the case study “Braga Romana” event in the destination of Braga plays a determining role in the territory. They act as a tool that advertises the territory, attract visitors and help to spread the destination brand image. The event perceived quality by the visitors help to promote the destination loyalty, contributing to the recommendation of the destination and its revisit. There is then a contribution of this study to different levels: literature contribute through relationship of variables already tested previously, marketing and tourism management contribute while destination management and touristic events support tool, it is also a contribute to the local development in the view of the object of study the event “Braga Romana”