Churin - Village Destination Branding in the Peruvian Andes

Diploma Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,0, University of the Americas Puebla (Escuela de Negocios y Economia, Departamento de Administracion y Negocios Internacionales), language: English, abstract: In today's world everything plays around marketing, promotion - brands! Whatever you want to sell, it does not suffice to have the best product of the world, you have to make it wanted by the final consumers (Klein, 1999). Ultimately, countries and cities have been increasingly considered as products: products which have to be promoted professionally in order to attract investors, residents and tourists (and/or make them stay) (Seisdedos, n.d.). Churin, a small village in the Peruvian Andes, on the contrary is very badly promoted: People, especially in the Peruvian capital Lima, know it from mouth-to-mouth propaganda due to its numerous and rich hot springs, but it lacks a coordinated and consolidated promotion strategy which would install the same image of Churin in the minds of everybody, and especially of the target group. Hence, the aspired contribution of this exploratory research paper is the initiation of a destination branding process in Churin as the researcher is convinced of its benefits as long as the destination brand is correctly and professionally applied, of course: On the one hand, the process of the brand building will unify the population of the village, and enhance the self-esteem and appreciation of the resources of its living place; on the other hand, the confluence of tourists should increase, and likewise the incomes of the residents of Churin and the surrounding communities. This would allow a sustainable improvement of the low standard of living and thus, Churin would offer a more positive vision for future generations.