Destination brand image and destination attachment of Gaziantep city: A study on domestic tourist

The numbers of destinations in the world are increasing gradually and the destinations are becoming more accessible through rapidly evolving technologies with each passing day. It increases the number of potential tourists' destinations of choice, thus causing a higher level of competition between destinations. As a result of increased competition between destinations, the destinations enter into branding efforts with a positive image via revealing their characteristic features in order to create a difference from other destinations. Succeed in branding destinations become a preferable situation and gain competitive advantages compared to other rival destinations. The competitive advantage achieved destinations are more visited by tourists and that provides a chance to improve destinations brand image and leads to a formation of a sense of destination attachment. The purpose of this research is stating what kind of destination brand image and destination attachment has Gaziantep City on domestic tourists' mind who visited Gaziantep City. The scope of this aim, the survey has been conducted by using convenience sampling method of non-random sampling techniques through face to face interview over 393 domestic tourists who visited Gaziantep City. The obtained data within the scope of the research were analyzed through the statistical package program SPSS 21.0 for Windows. In this context, the arithmetic average and standard deviation values calculated and factor analysis was utilized for grouping data. Considering that the data did not show normal distribution, "Mann-Whitney U Test" and "Kruskal-Wallis H Test" were applied on the data, in order to determine whether demographic characteristics of domestic tourists has any effect on destination brand image and destination attachment. The result of this research indicates that the destination brand image of domestic tourists is consisting four dimensions such as "natural and cultural attractions", "city facilities and social environment", "the atmosphere of the region", and "activities and events", while destination attachment has a single dimension. On the other hand, the destination brand image of domestic tourists is at the high level while destination attachment is on medium level for Gaziantep. Due to performed correlation analysis, there is statistically a positive directional and a meaningful relationship between destination brand image perceptions of domestic tourists who visit Gaziantep and the destination attachment of domestic tourists. Keywords: Destination, Destination Brand Image, Destination Attachment, Gaziantep.