Challenges and prospects of differentiating destination brands: The case of the Dutch Caribbean Islands

The brand image of the six islands of the Dutch Caribbean are examined in this exploratory study to determine the extent to which these destinations communicate the unique identities of their destination brands as presented by the narrative, images, logos, and slogans on their official tourism homepage websites. The findings of the content analysis indicated that these destinations demonstrated similar branding strategies and so appear to be basically undifferentiated in both functional and symbolic brand image appeals. This article proposes that these island destinations may be able to build strong, individual, destination brand equity by focusing more on crafting and communicating distinctive, symbolic brand images.