Managing destination image for potential gulf countries tourists via communication effects assessment: the case of Malaysia

This study responds to the call for more empirical evidence and theoretical framework for tourism destination consumer based brand equity (CBBE), and for more effort to link marketing communication (MC) as information sources on destination awareness and image across different fields. Using Malaysia as the context, this study focused on potential tourists from two Gulf countries (GC) i.e. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 405 responses were collected via self administered questionnaire on purposively selected samples in Dubai and Jeddah. The findings indicate that uncontrolled MCs have significant effect on the awareness and image dimensions of CBBE, while controlled MC has significant effect only on destination image. Several implications of the findings were later discussed. The managerial implications are that destination marketers targeting potential GC tourists need to satisfy existing GC tourists to Malaysia to create positive WOM. They also need to focus on integrating both Controlled and Uncontrolled MCs strategies to reduce confusing image of the destination