A Comparative Study of the Use of Iconic versus Generic Advertising Images for Destination Marketing

This research reports the results of an empirical study that compared the effectiveness of two advertising approaches, generic versus iconic, in affecting a destination image. While politics may dictate that a state ( as studied herein) or national tourism office may feel the need to spread advertising funds across a range of destinations, the experiment conducted for this study suggests that a focus on well-known iconic sites may well represent the more effective approach.