Branding Ethiopia as an Appealing Tourist Destination

This empirical analysis shows how destination branding helps to build the cognitive, affective and unique image of Ethiopia. It introduces factors that affect destination competitiveness and area of attention that can effect tourists’ perceived image and experiences. 364 external public’s respondents were approached in major selected tourist site in the country. 345 usable responses were gathered and a quantitative analysis was carried out using the SPSS to generate how each destination brand element affects overall national images. The parameters were then combined and the results of this empirical study presented using descriptive and correlation analysis techniques and outcomes were discussed accordingly. The results reveal that the strength of general environmental elements and quality seem more significant than other elements in this one test. Moreover, the cognitive, affective and unique image of the country significantly affects the overall nation brand image. The finding also revealed that the nation image is the sum of all the three dimensions of the destination image.i.e. Cognitive, affective and unique image. Certain managerial and research recommendations and suggestions were also raised as a result of the analysis.