Sustainable destination image: a tool to market sustainable destinations?

In the recent decade, there has been a growing demand for sustainable destinations, mainly due to higher sustainability awareness amongst consumers. Various destinations around the globe have recognized early on that branding the place and building the image of a sustainable destination could attract more visitors. The aim of this paper is to explore, based on the theoretical and empirical literature review, the role of sustainable destination image in building sustainable destinations. The findings of the literature review show that sustainable destination image is build based on environmental, economic, socio demographic, cultural and historical context, as well as visitor and tourist profile of the destination. Sustainable destination image is used as a marketing tool to engage with specific market segments that are willing to pay higher prices to spend holidays in destinations that emphasize economic, environment and social sustainability.