Operationalising branding through a sense of place toolkit Open Access

Designated under UNESCO, biosphere reserves are considered category VI protected areas (IUCN and Dudley, 2008) that encourage a participatory approach of local communities in the planning and management of these sites (Pool-Stanvliet and Coetzer, 2020; UNESCO, 2023). Tourism is gaining popularity for inclusion in the mandate of UNESCO designations (Job et al., 2017) and place making, the inclusive term for planning, design and management (Sofield et al., 2017) of these reserves requires sustainable development. This emphasises that the future of tourism in these contexts should be (1) embedded in sustainability (Fayos-Solà and Cooper, 2019) and (2) require community participation (Goebel et al., 2020).

Although there is a reluctance to recognise protected area designations as a destination brand (Adie et al., 2018; King and Halpenny, 2014), well-known brands like UNESCO unavoidably promote these areas, which could lead to over-tourism (Hosseini et al., 2021). The misrepresentation of the context, disregard for the larger environment or the commodification of residents have also been reported by scholars as negative impacts of branding protected areas (Kihima, 2014; Ruiz and Santamarina, 2023; Tam, 2019). But branding strategies can be used to engage people’s emotions, encourage positive behaviours, increase stewardship, connect people to the area, and improve the management and sustainable development of protected areas (Jankovic et al., 2019; Melnychenko et al., 2021; Wang and Yuan, 2020). Despite the benefits, branding is often the most underutilised management tool for conservation efforts (Bidder et al., 2022; García-Hernández and Garay-Tamajón, 2022). The research question guiding this research is thus, how can branding be operationalised in biosphere reserves? This research proposes a sense of place (SoP) toolkit designed by the (brand) community as contextualised in the following sections.

Branding is essentially a place making tool (Lew, 2017) to support the destination’s positioning approach by communicating the unique identity, profile and features that may include both tangible and intangible characteristics (Ruiz-Real et al., 2020). Compared to traditional brands’ economic development objective (Lecompte et al., 2017), protected areas’ brands should portray their unique features in such a way that sustainable development and use are encouraged (Melnychenko et al., 2021; Wang and Yuan, 2020). For this reason, some authors opt for the term eco-brand (Suki, 2013; Chi, 2021); however, it is mostly used within a green marketing context. There has been a rising interest in sustainable tourism branding (the inclusive term of place and destination branding). However, bibliometric reviews by Phung and Nguyen (2023) and Pahrudin et al. (2022) make one wonder if traditional marketing and branding principles are merely applied to sustainable tourism or if something else is meant by sustainable tourism branding. This comment is specially made against the recent nature of sustainability marketing, under which branding resides. As Wiścicka-Fernando (2018) argues, where traditional marketing focuses on economic growth, sustainability marketing expands its impact on the environment and society (i.e. inclusive of the triple bottom line). Kemper and Ballantyne (2019) have also indicated that many marketing approaches towards sustainability (e.g. green, ecological or social) have fallen short of sustainability by over-emphasising one dimension of the triple bottom line and neglecting the others. This might be the reason for the negative impacts reported by scholars of branding protected areas.

UNESCO with its World Heritage Site (WHS) and Biosphere Reserve designations is a globally known protected area brand. There is a great deal of research on WHS in terms of political influences on the destination brand (Ryan and Silvanto, 2010), brand awareness (King and Halpenny, 2014), the designation for branding purposes (Hassan and Rahman, 2015), the extent to which sites brand themselves (Wuepper and Patry, 2017), and leveraging the brand for planning and promotion (Porter, 2020) to name but a few. However, there is limited research on the designation and branding of the Biosphere Reserve. Some of these studies include the effect of co-creation on a tourism destination’s brand image through social media (Hernández et al., 2016) or the influence of advertisements on the brand image (Arklina et al., 2020). There is a great deal of literature that confirms the public’s low awareness of biosphere reserves (Botha, 2023; Van Cuong et al., 2018), which necessitates branding these sites more effectively. While multiple designations may cause complicated brand systems (Wang and Yuan, 2020), individual branding of biosphere reserves can benefit from the corporate UNESCO brand when aligned with its sustainability values (King and Halpenny, 2014; Hassan and Rahman, 2015). It is, therefore, necessary to pay attention to the individual brand-building process.

Destination brand building consists of three components, namely (1) brand identity (image desired in the market), (2) brand positioning and (3) brand image (actual image by target consumers) (Pike, 2021). Although the process is far more complex than what is presented in Figure 1, this study is limited to brand identity as explained below.

As the brand community, the community is the social framework of a given place as ambassadors and citizens with opportunities for decision-making and management (Reynolds et al., 2022). There is support that the development, management and promotion of protected areas should involve community members and, even more so, owing to the socio-ecological status of biosphere reserves (Hatipoglu et al., 2016; Huber and Arnberger, 2021; Van Cuong et al., 2018). In addition, Escobar-Farfán et al. (2024) call for more research to actively include the community in “sustainable destination brand identity”. Excluding the community in the brand-building process would lead to their lack of recognition, acceptance and commitment, which, in turn, would affect the brand image (Campelo et al., 2014). It is thus crucial to include the community to represent their SoP in the destination brand (Campelo et al., 2014; Daldanise, 2020; Lecompte et al., 2017; Pike, 2021).

SoP is the interrelationship between people and a place, and their meanings, beliefs, values and feelings thereof (Erfani, 2022; Jarratt et al., 2019; Lecompte et al., 2017). On a continuum, SoP is categorised as uncommitted placelessness (no attachment) to cohesive rootedness (ideological attachment) (Cross, 2001). As a multidimensional construct, SoP consists of (1) place meanings and (2) place attachments. Place meaning relies on the physical attributes of an environment that influence the symbolic, social and cultural meanings a person holds (Ujang and Zakariya, 2015). Place attachment is the emotional bond a person has with a place that can further be subdivided into place dependence, place identity, place affect, social bonding, place memory and place expectations (Chen et al., 2014; Ramkissoon et al., 2013).

Duggan et al. (2023) identify the operationalisation of SoP in decision-making processes of environmental contexts as a clear gap. Lecompte et al. (2017) attempted to mobilise SoP in branding and identified categories to this effect, namely, historical and cultural heritage, physical attributes, social relations, recreational activities and personal journeys. To reach sustainability, however, it is essential to translate theoretical frameworks into tools that can practically be used (Bertella et al., 2021).

SoP toolkits aim to emphasise a given place’s uniqueness and how to operationalise it within the community to strengthen destination branding (Jarratt et al., 2019). Several destinations with protected area designations have SoP toolkits (e.g. Area of Outstanding Universal Value – Forest of Bowland and Clwydian Range; Biosphere Reserve–Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere; and Landscape of Outstanding Historic Interest – Gwent Levels). These toolkits are restricted to the United Kingdom (Jarratt et al., 2019) and, to the author’s knowledge, no evidence of the contrary could be found. Understanding how these destinations operationalise SoP could guide other areas to build their brands.

The toolkits in Table 1 have similar content in that they all explain SoP, relevance to the community, the meaning of the designation, guidelines to use the toolkit and the area’s unique features captured within themes. Hopley and Mahony (2010) describe these themes as “sub-brands” which, in turn, are transformed into slogans to represent the special quality to which it relates. Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere and Gwent Levels provide a breakdown for different community groups to illustrate how they can use the toolkit. The Clwydian Range, Forest of Bowland and Gwent Levels provide suggested local words to explain their destinations. Only the Clwydian Range and Forest of Bowland provide a tourism context explanation and additional marketing guidelines.

As previously explained, the biosphere reserve designation is relatively unknown to the public, and confusion about the socio-ecological relationship may lead to negative consequences. Using a SoP toolkit to reveal this designation meaning could improve awareness. In turn, this could lead to higher support and/or participation in these areas (Cheng et al., 2019; Darvishmotevali et al., 2024) as it could strengthen the place attachment and place meaning relationship of SoP linked to the brand community’s behaviour (Masterson et al., 2017). Considering that biosphere reserves ought to share the services, products and tools emanating from their research for the benefit of other areas (UNESCO, 2007), it is worrisome that very few toolkits share their specific methodologies (Jarratt et al., 2019).

One of ten, and the youngest biosphere reserves in South Africa, the Marico Biosphere Reserve was designated in 2018 owing to its unique freshwater system that forms part of the broader Dolomitic Aquifer System of the North-West (Marico Biosphere Reserve, 2023). Among other initiatives, tourism is envisioned to add to the reserve’s sustainable development commitments (Marico Biosphere Reserve, 2017). As a destination, the reserve is currently in the involvement phase of the tourism area life cycle as they have relatively few visitors and minimal tourism infrastructure (Butler, 1980). The reserve is thus uniquely positioned to develop tourism sustainably from the onset.

This study followed constructivist and pragmatised approaches using a case study. Constructivism entails that social phenomena develop in social contexts and that individuals create their realities (Quinlan et al., 2019). “The pragmatist … starts with a problem and aims to contribute practical solutions that inform future practice” (Saunders et al., 2016:143). This study used the nominal group technique (NGT) to identify a community’s SoP (constructivism) and to operationalise this in a destination-specific SoP toolkit (pragmatism) for the case study. This approach is suitable since it identifies how a community handles their real-world setting (Yin, 2016) and is encouraged by the socio-ecological relationship of the biosphere reserve designation (UNESCO, 2023).

The NGT is a consensus technique originally developed by Delbecq et al. (1975) to produce immediate action planning (Varga-Atkins et al., 2017). While it is a qualitative method, it uses numerical data for voting and is a simultaneous data collection and analysis tool driven by the participants (Ritchie, 1985). It is thus an excellent technique to use for participatory action research (Goebel et al., 2020) (See procedure later for more detail on how it works.) Other consensus techniques (comparisons in Murphy et al., 1997) were not applicable as they are suited for more complex scenarios. The NGT was preferred as participants’ physical presence may contribute towards empowerment and ownership of the outcome while overcoming the problems of group interaction experience in other methods (Hugé and Mukherjee, 2018; Lloyd, 2011; Olsen, 2019; Van Teijlingen et al., 2006). The NGT can either be used alone or in combination with other methods. Previous tourism studies used the NGT to understand stakeholders’ capacity for sustainable tourism development (Churugsa et al., 2007); conduct tourism planning (Spencer, 2010); identify barriers to stakeholder involvement in sustainable tourism planning (Hatipoglu et al., 2016) and identify ecotourism support required (Feyers et al., 2020) to name but a few. While Jarratt et al. (2019) did not refer to their method as the NGT, they used it to develop a SoP toolkit.

Ethical clearance [#removed] was obtained before fieldwork commenced on 21 April 2022. With assistance from the Marico Biosphere Reserve Management Authority, prospective participants were identified (see below) and e-mail invitations to take part in the workshop were sent. The invitation contained the goal of the study, voluntary participation, the research process and informed consent.

A non-probability purposive sampling technique was used. Current tourism entrepreneurs in the Marico Biosphere Reserve were selected (1) to harness the power of the community in the reserve (Stoll-Kleemann et al., 2010), (2) to focus on those directly represented by the brand (Campelo et al., 2014), (3) to commend their contribution towards sustainable development in biosphere reserves (Job et al., 2017; OASIS, 2017) and (4) their involvement may affect other community members’ involvement (Huber and Arnberger, 2016). The NGT functions best with fewer participants (Chapple and Murphy, 1996; Thier and Mason, 2019) and while 2 to 14 are advocated, 7 are recommended (McMillan et al., 2014). Of the total, 8 of the 21 participants invited, participated.

Both data collection and analysis, as applied in this study, are explained below.

The researcher acted as the facilitator and not as a substantive expert (Van Teijlingen et al., 2006). Background information on what a SoP is, toolkit examples and participant responsibilities in the process were explained.

The facilitator asked the participants to consider the question “What are the unique selling points of the Marico Biosphere Reserve?”, where they, silently and independently, responded to this question with one idea per Post-it note. Discussions are discouraged to avoid competition, status and conformity pressures from influencing idea generation (Chapple and Murphy, 1996; Lloyd, 2011).

Without discussion, each participant shared one idea at a time (round-robin). These ideas were recorded verbatim by sticking their notes on a flip chart. One idea might stimulate new ideas (Lloyd, 2011), and participants were allowed to add additional ideas until no new ideas were presented.

The participants had the opportunity to discuss their ideas and seek clarity from one another. Where necessary, clarity was added to ideas by defining them or adding examples. The facilitator ensured that less vocal participants had an equal opportunity to participate (Chapple and Murphy, 1996). Participants were required to group ideas and allocate themes to present their SoP like other toolkits.

The identified themes were added to a questionnaire-format document, which required the participants to indicate their agreement on each theme using the Likert scale provided. Each participant’s responses were submitted and captured in a pre-formatted Excel sheet.

Seeing as one of the advantages of the NGT is to allow “minority” voices to be aired, the individual voting process was preferred to guard against possible social pressure (Hugé and Mukherjee, 2018; Lloyd, 2011).

Thier and Mason (2019) recommend that authors stipulate whether the outcome of the NGT is consensus (resolve agreement), prioritisation (identifying essential outcomes) or both. Ratings (level of quality of an item) provide a more precise sense of consensus, whereas rankings (measurement of overall performance) provide relative importance in a prioritisation approach (Thier and Mason, 2019). This study used a Likert scale rating to determine consensus. While some studies made use of frequencies (percentage) on response categories (Feyers et al., 2020), this study also calculated the mean value and standard deviation (SD = the spread of data) (Field, 2018). Owing to this study’s small sample size (n = 8), a consensus was reached when the top 2-box frequency (percentage of top two response categories) was ≥88%.

This study made use of a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree; and 5 = strongly agree) that clearly articulated interval levels (Thier and Mason, 2019) and used a mid-point to force ambivalent participants to make a choice (Weijters et al., 2010).

Branding decisions are made with the target consumer (tourists) in mind (Pike, 2021) and, therefore, the results of an exploratory study were presented. Owing to the sustainable development mandate of biosphere reserves, this study was biased towards sustainable tourism, identifying tourists’ environmentally responsible behaviour and experience preferences for the reserve. The following two steps were thus added to the NGT.

Participants had the opportunity to discuss their opinions of the presentation and had the chance to add or alter ideas or generate new ideas and/or themes, thus repeating steps 1 to 3.

Regardless of whether the original list of themes changed, participants voted on the list of themes again (repeat of step 3) to establish consensus.

Among the eight participants, five were male and three female across the tourism sector (three = accommodation; two = recreation; one = intermediary; one = reserve management; and one = attraction). Two participants were <60 years of age and six were >60.

The ideas mostly captured singular words or short phrases (see examples in Table 2). Initially, the group allocated generic themes, for example, “adventure”, but the facilitator required the group to be more descriptive with the themes.

Eight themes were generated by the participants in round one and an additional theme in round two. In general, some of the ideas were opportunities for further development to preserve the biosphere reserve’s SoP. For example, themes T3 and T7 are related to aspects that are unique to the area and currently in place. While there are a few environmental conservation and local projects in the area, participants expressed the desire to transform these (T1 and T2) into volunteer opportunities. While there are isolated cases, the ideas under T9 have not been executed (participants expressed these as “this is our wish list”, and “begin here”), and offer further development opportunities.

As per mean values (see Table 3), participants strongly agreed with T8 (4.50), T1 (4.38), T4 (4.38), T5 (4.38) and T7 (4.38). Respondents agreed with T6 (4.00), T3 (3.88) and T2 (3.63). These mean values coincide with the score values (highest to lowest).

Although the mean values indicate agreement on all the themes, the standard deviation indicates medium (SD = 0.74 or 0.83) to high (SD = 1.07) variability on most themes indicating some differences between participants. The theme T5 had the lowest variability (SD = 0.52), while T6 had the highest variability (SD = 1.07). Consensus was only reached on five of the eight themes in round one (≥88%). Only T2, T3 and T6 received frequencies of 50%, 63% and 75%, respectively.

With the addition of the additional theme in round two, all the themes reached mean values above 4 indicating that participants strongly agreed with the themes. The highest agreement was for T4 (4.75), and thereafter T9 (4.71), T5 (4.50), T7 (4.50), T8 (4.50), T1 (4.38), T2 (4.13), T3 (4.13) and T6 (4.13). This time, four themes obtained low standard deviations: T5 (SD = 0.53), T7 (SD = 0.53), T8 (SD = 0.53) and T9 (SD = 0.49). The T6 theme remained with a large standard deviation (SD = 0.99), while the rest of the themes had medium standard deviations. All the themes received consensus (≥88%). With specific reference to T9, one participant did not vote on this theme, which caused the order of mean values not to align with the order of scores (second-highest mean value vs lowest score).

To operationalise branding through a SoP toolkit, it is important to reflect on the practical and academic results and their implications.

This study is different from previous sustainable tourism studies that have used the NGT as they either did not require themes (Churugsa et al., 2007; Feyers et al., 2020) or where themes were required (Hatipoglu et al., 2016; Jarratt et al., 2019; Spencer, 2010) the themes were given. In this study, participants were required to create the themes. Except for Jarratt et al. (2019), the norm seems to be rating (i.e. voting on ideas using an appropriate Likert scale). While Delbecq et al. (1975) recommended using a 10-point Likert scale, all the studies, except for Spencer (2010), used a 5-point Likert scale, including this study. This study was slightly similar to Feyers et al. (2020) who reported on frequencies, which considered missing data; however, this study went further to include mean values and standard deviations. It was interesting to note how missing data impacts the prioritisation results in the scoring method for this study.

To translate research into pragmatic tools, as required by the biosphere reserve status, it is important to address the methodological uncertainties with the NGT to increase its reliable application in future sustainable tourism studies.

While the NGT is better suited for small samples, authors have used larger samples by either allowing representatives from several groups to form an integrative group (e.g. Churugsa et al., 2007) or dealing with one question at a time and scoring all ideas or per theme (e.g. Hatipoglu et al., 2016; Spencer, 2010). Like most studies, the use of a 5-point Likert scale is highly recommended, as the mid-point forces ambivalent participants to make a choice and using a fewer-category scale helps users unfamiliar with scales to easily make choices (Weijters et al., 2010).

The type of project dictates the use of themes as an outcome. Some projects do not require themes (Feyers et al., 2020), while others know these upfront (e.g. Jarratt et al., 2019; Spencer, 2010) or will be explored through scientific inquiry (e.g. Hatipoglu et al., 2016) or be created by the community (like this study). While all studies allowed the communities’ voices to be heard, practitioners should consider the project’s intent and ownership of the outcome. For this study, ownership of the SoP toolkit is crucial and thus required them to determine the themes.

There is a standing debate about using quantitative data in qualitative studies like the NGT does. While numbers can provide evidence for interpretations, inferences should be made with caution (Maxwell, 2010). A clear gap identified to this effect is how authors have dealt with missing data (participants not voting) in NGT. Missing data may cause ill-informed prioritisation in scoring approaches. Calculating the mean values provides a way around this and could also be beneficial in larger samples where facilitators cannot follow up with each participant’s responses. The standard deviation provides a more accurate interpretation of results (consensus with low variability is a more accurate representation than consensus with high variability).

Most of the themes identified in this study coincide with Lecompte et al. (2017) SoP categories to support place branding, namely, historical and cultural heritage (e.g. T3), physical attributes (e.g. T1, T5, T7 and T8), social relations (e.g. T4 and T2), personal journeys (e.g. T5, T1 and T2) and recreational activities (e.g. T6). However, the T6 theme remained with a large standard deviation, making the consensus on whether this theme should be included in a SoP toolkit questionable.

In round two, T9 surfaced with the lowest standard deviation making the inclusion of this theme in the toolkit conclusive. However, this theme does not fit into Lecompte et al. (2017) SoP branding categories. T9 literally indicates that participants’ SoP is linked to their support for sustainable development, which other authors have found (Liu and Cheung, 2016; Zhu et al., 2017). The theme could represent an “ideological” SoP since Rouillard et al. (2022) confirm that high ideology in protected areas supports conservation and the role of these areas for future generations. This emphasises sustainability in place making.

Various stakeholders who value the same place may have diverse reasons and interpret and act upon their SoP differently (Chapin III and Knapp, 2015). Debates about the future of a place are associated with contested meanings of a place rather than place attachment (Masterson et al., 2017) – both of which reside under SoP. The meanings people hold (e.g. a place for recreation or an environmentally sensitive place) impact what they see as worthy of protection (Masterson et al., 2017). For example, Switalski et al. (2023) reported interpretation differences between urban and non-urban residents, hinting that place meanings impact place making.

Although the intervention included in this study was not a dedicated “education for sustainability” session, it did focus on sustainable tourism. While Churugsa et al. (2007) and Hatipoglu et al.’s (2016) studies were different, they deemed it necessary to define sustainable tourism before the NGT started. This emphasises place meanings in sustainability contexts authors have argued for (Masterson et al., 2017; Saar and Palang, 2009). Also acknowledging the impact of working together on the SoP themes with other participants (place-based community), the realisation that tourists (a non-place-based community) value their place and illustrate environmentally responsible behaviour might have strengthened the collective behaviour perception (Erfani, 2022) or “sense of mission” (Tan and Tan, 2023). This collective view can especially be beneficial in socio-ecological landscapes (Masterson et al., 2017).

Considering that destination branding is a place making tool, place meanings could arguably be just as important for destination branding in protected areas. These destinations should, therefore, have a dedicated session to sustainability in cases where contested place meanings may occur to reach a consensus. This may be especially true in biosphere reserves where there is low public awareness about the designation. Reaching collaborative place making (Lew, 2017) enables the destination to effectively manage and brand the destination.

Hopley and Mahony (2010) explain that identifying the SoP themes or “sub-brands” is an important shift from only promoting the place through the protected area designation towards a more targeted approach. In this case, T9 is specifically important. Like the Forest of Bowland, which has an overarching theme (namely Forest of Bowland “A place to enjoy and keep special”), the T9 theme illustrates the desire for a more sustainable area that can be incorporated into all the identified themes. Jarratt et al. (2019) explain that these themes should not merely focus on the features they present but also on the feelings they evoke.

SoP toolkits have been compared to interpretation (Jarratt et al., 2019). Interpretation is “an educational activity which aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objectives, by first-hand experiences, and illustrative media, rather than simply to communicate factual information” (Tilden, 1977:8). Interpretation captures the SoP and uniqueness of an area, increases awareness of its protection, enhances the experience in the area and encourages responsible behaviour (Black, 2018; Chang et al., 2015; Kim and Coghlan, 2018; Wang et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2018). The outcome of the SoP workshop thus need not separate the principles of interpretation and marketing (Jarratt et al., 2019).

If SoP toolkits are truly tools to operationalise branding, these tools need to align with sustainability marketing principles to benefit protected areas. If SoP toolkits and interpretation are to be equated, the toolkits could use interpretation principles for this purpose. As Tan and Tan (2023) explain, SoP captured in interpretation also helps to brand a place for sustainable development and use. Walker and Moscardo (2016) explain this best and argue that the goal of interpretation extends beyond a “SoP” to a “care of place”. For these toolkits to truly embody sustainability destination branding, the content should focus on sustainable development, responsible use and sustainable lifestyles to the benefit of the place (Font and McGabe, 2017; Kemper and Ballentine, 2019).

Behaviour change is a difficult task since many authors have confirmed the intention–behaviour gap in protected areas (Wu et al., 2023; Zhu et al., 2022). Notwithstanding other constraints, in most cases, the intention–behaviour gap is attributed to self-efficacy. The likelihood of the community participating in advancing a protected area is linked to the ease or difficulty in performing the protective behaviour (Fong et al., 2017; Kornilaki et al., 2017). Simple “taking care” tasks should be emphasised in these toolkits, like purchasing local, respecting different cultures or reporting threats affecting the environment. These simple tasks may spill over to more challenging tasks (Lauren et al., 2016), thus narrowing the intention–behaviour gap and can “care” scale up stewardship globally (Masterson et al., 2017).

The future of tourism is linked to alternative frameworks grounded in knowledge-based innovation (Fayos-Solà and Cooper, 2019). Social-cultural innovation, as advocated by sustainable tourism scholars, requires community participatory processes – translating objectives into actions. This research not only contributes towards research on destination branding in biosphere reserves but also research involving communities. The findings of this paper will help biosphere reserves’ future tourism to be sustainable and incorporate communities effectively in the process. The following recommendations apply to both scholars and practitioners to improve the relevance of academic-practice research.

The NGT method, as used in this study, can increase the transferability and accuracy of inferences in group consensus. This study is far from suggesting how sustainable destination branding should be conducted. However, the results do suggest that place meanings may play a prominent role in sustainability. Lending from the sustainability marketing literature, this study suggests that protected areas should not only focus on SoP but also on how to take “care” of the place in their branding initiatives to scale up stewardship. More research is required on sustainability marketing and the marketing mix’s practicalities for enhancing sustainable tourism in destinations. Considering the socio-ecological relationships in destinations like protected areas, it will also be valuable to investigate the role of SoP and how to use it in sustainable marketing effectively.

The author would like to thank Dorothy Queiros and Nicolene Conradie for their assistance with the fieldwork.