Factors Influencing Brand Equity of Bali as a Tourism Destination I

Globally, competition among tourism destinations is more stringent in getting foreign tourists, including Bali. One effort to win the competition is increasing destination brand equity through maintaining its influencing factors and gaining tourist positive behavior toward destination. This effort, in long run, will increase and stabilize destination revenue and sustainability. This research aims to analyze factors influencing brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination. This research was conducted in Bali‟s five major tourism objects. The 240 foreign tourists were chosen as respondents through convenience sampling technique. Data were analyzed using factor analysis. The results showed that factors that significantly influenced Bali brand equity were: symbolic and experiential benefit factor, direct and indirect destinations attributes, destination reliability and tangibility, assurance and empathy, brand destinations recognition and recall, destinations common psychological attributes, destination common functional attributes, unique functional attributes, behavioral loyalty, destination awareness, and attitudinal loyalty. Given the fluctuative nature of brand equity, Bali needs a consistent effort to maintain or to enhance brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination. Maintaining the dominant factors that influence the strength of brand equity can be used as a basis to develop destination branding strategy to expand market segment, choose the right target market, and anchoring destination position in world market competition.


Background
Study of destination brand equity for Indonesia becomes a very strategic agenda.This is because most of tourism destinations in Indonesia are not yet becoming globally competitive tourism destination if foreign tourist arrivals used as the main criterion.In fact, world tourism industry has a very strong competition in gaining internasional tourists market share (Chang, 2008).Understanding on how tourism destination brand equity plays an important role in determining international tourist"s arrival in destination becomes very important to develop destination competitiveness.
Lack of destination brand equity measurement in Indonesia consequentially affects the lack of basic information in developing tourism destination attributes to support high destination brand equity.In fact, high destination brand equity is theoretically capable to influence tourist decision making to visit destination (Konečnik, 2005).e-ISSN: 2407-392X.p-ISSN: 2541-0857 Anchored in the context of tourism destination marketing, a tourism destination must have high brand equity to attract international tourists visit.According to Aaker (in Chang, 2008), brand equity is defined as "a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol".Thus, brand equity is a set of assets or the added value attached to product(s) or service(s) name or symbol.Chang (2008) added that the purpose of brand equity in tourism destination is "maximizing the uniqueness of destinations to distinguish it from other destinations in reaching the target market".The importance of brand equity to win the competition among tourism destinations clearly stated by Morgan et al. (in Greaves and Skinner, 2010) that "brand as the most powerful marketing weapon available to contemporary destination marketers".Furthermore, according to Morgan et al. (ibid), the primary function of brand destination is its ability to create tourists loyalty to destination.The main benefit of creating a tourism destination brand is to grow and to maintain the loyalty of tourists to destinations and eventually to increase tourism destinations revenue.
Bali, as a world tourism destination, does not have any empirical data related to its tourism destination brand equity, regarding to its status as a cultural tourism destination in accordance with Bali Cultural Tourism Act (PERDA No. 2/2012).Research on factors that significantly affect the brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination is very important to be conducted.In fact, having data on destination brand equity especially factors influencing its brand equity is essential in order to compete with other destinations in the world.This will be a strong justification for this research to be carried out.

Research Purpose
This research aims to analyze factors that influence of brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.

Brand
According to The American Marketing Association (Kotler and Gertner, 2004) brand is defined as: …name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition (Kotler dan Gertner, 2004).Furthermore, Kotler and Gertner (2004) stated that "brand can differentiate one product to another and gives a certain value to the product".Brand, therefore, is able to make the company builds a unique identity and gain greater market niche compared to other similar products or services (Simmons, 2007).Brand itself is not limited as tagline, but it may involve one or a combination of several factors (name, term, sign, symbol, picture, or design) to identify a product or service provided.

Tourism Destination Brand Equity
According to Aaker (in Chang, 2008) brand equity is defined as "a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol".Then, Ming, Ismail and Rasiah (2011) define brand equity as "the incremental utility and value added to a product by its brand name".Thus, brand equity lies on how much asset or added value owned by a related product names and symbols attached to it.This happens because the brand value and asset will be increased or decreased depends on the consumer response to the product or service.
According to Aaker (in Chang, 2008), brand equity includes five components, namely: (a) brand loyalty, (b) brand awareness, (c) perceived quality, (d) brand association, and (e) proprietary assets.Aaker asserts that: …a good brand strategy should concentrate on attempts to achieve name awareness, perceived quality, and brand association in order to win high loyalty to the brand product.Brand loyalty…can strengthen the other components of brand equity and increase the brands"s competitiveness on the target market (Chang, 2008).
Aaker (in Chang, 2008) concluded that "a well-performing brand owns superior quality, which affects customer's perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward it" e-ISSN: 2407-392X.p-ISSN: 2541-0857 Aaker and Keller (Keller, 1993(Keller, , 2001;;Chang, 2008;Pike et al., 2010) introduced Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE).CBBE is a difference effect of consumers in response to the marketing of a specific product or service brand.A brand has has a positive (or negative) CBBE when consumers react positively (or negatively) to the marketing mix of a brand.
The application of CBBE specifically for tourism destinations was introduced by Konecnik (2005), followed by the subsequent publications by Konecnik and Gartner (2007) and Konecnik (2010).According to Konecnik (2010), a tourism destination brand built by: (a) destination awareness, (b) destination image, (c) perceived quality, and (d) destination loyalty.Konecnick and Gartner (2007) concluded "the interrelationship, plus the cumulative value of brand dimensions, are what gives rise to the creation of brand equity".
Richie and Richi (in Jalilvand, Esfahani and Samiei, 2010) stated that brand equity should be able to communicate the promise of a memorable travel experience that is uniquely associated to the respective destinations.Brand equity also should be able to be taken into consideration and persuade tourist to travel to the destination.

Methodology
The survey of 240 foreign tourists as respondents carried out from January 2015 until November 2015 in five main tourism objects in Bali namely: Tanah Lot (107 respondents), Ulun Danu Beratan (44 respondents), Uluwatu (43 respondents), Penelokan Batur (28 respondents ), and Taman Ayun (18 respondents).This research uses a quantitative research design.Data were analyzed using factor analysis with SPSS 16.0 for Windows software (Santoso, 2014).
Before performing factor analysis, first the research instruments were tested concerning the reliability and validity of the questionnaire included the fit of estimator model.Based on the research instrument reliability test was obtained Cronbach's Alpha of 0.917> 0.60 (reliable) as can be seen on Appendix 1. Furthermore, test of research instrument validity was obtained Corrected Item-Total Correlation > r table (0.11) (valid) as can be seen on Appendix 2. Based on both tests above can be concluded that the research instrument is feasible used in the factor analysis (Santoso, 2014).
The accuracy test of factor analysis model uses the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) and the significance value (Appendix 3).Based on the analysis was obtained KMO value (0.818)> 0.6, falls into the meritorious criterion so the factor analysis deserves to be continued.Barlett Test of Sphericity is (5.034) ≥ 0.90 at significance (0.000) <α (0.05) which means that there was a significant correlation between the parameters of observation.This will be a good model predictor for factor analysis.It is supported by all the anti-image correlation value measurement parameters > 0.6 that means it is feasible to be used for further factor analysis.

Respondent Characteristics
Of the 240 respondents, 42.50% were male and 57.5 % female, a difference of 15.0 %.The average age of respondents was 40.09 years with a range between 18 year old to 81 year old.A total of 76.67 percent of respondents visit Bali as their first destination in this traveling time prior to other destinations in the world.While, the remaining 23.33 percent visited Bali after other destinations, both destinations in Indonesia and abroad.
The average frequency of visiting Bali was 5.48 times.The number of respondents who has his first traveling to Bali is 39.2 percent while the remaining 60.8 percent are repeater guests.The average length of stay in e-ISSN: 2407-392X.p-ISSN: 2541-0857 Bali is 18.08 days and the average frequency of recommending Bali tourism destinations as a travel destination to others is 7.33 times.
Related to travel arrangements to Bali, 83.4 percent of respondents do personal travel arrangements while the remaining 16.7 percent arranged by travel agents.As many as 25.8 percent of respondents travel to Bali alone, 50.0 percent was accompanied by family members, and 24.2 percent travel in the group.

Factors Influencing Brand Equity of Bali as a Tourism Destination
Factor analysis generates 11 new factors (Figure 1) and is able to explain 68.835% of the total variance parameters (total variance explained) that constructs Bali brand equity as a tourism destination.Determination of the parameters included into particular factor depends on the criteria if the loading factor > 0.6.

Figure 1. Factors Influencing Brand Equity of Bali as a Tourism Destination
Figure 1 gives the impression that factors that dominantly influence the formation of brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination mainly come from the island interpretation of symbolic meaning for travelers.If we visit a particular place then we can satisfy such symbolic needs like prestige, exclusifity, and high-image impact to ourself both personaly and socially.In addition, traveling to Bali for respondents is taking the chance in their life experiencing a unique cultural destination, having contact with people with other cultural background, sense of the aura of Hinduism civilization in modern era and for some of them Bali means adventuring the omnipresent paradise in the real wolrd.For some others, visiting Bali as a tourism destination is not about that deep meaning but typical of mass tourists who travel for fun and seight seeing destination attributes: natural beauty, the beaches, the lakes, the mountains, agrotourism lanscapes and so on.Of course, there are so many reasons why tourists travel to Bali and all reason in such way develop factors influence the brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.For detail, those factors will be explained in detail as follow:

a. Factors of symbolic and experiential benefits
This factor has Eigen value 9.848 and total variance equal to 24.019% (Appendix 4).Symbolic benefits of Bali as a tourism destination is the benefits and advantages of Bali tourism destinations related to their association with the fulfillment of social needs and personal expression of foreign tourists like the feeling of prestige, exclusivity, or fashionability of having vacation to Bali.This indicates that Bali is a prestigious tourism destination and tourists feel proudly enough traveling to Bali this time.Exclusivity for tourists mainly associated with the peculiarities of exotic Hindu culture different from other destinations.Experiential benefits of Bali as a tourism destination is the perceived benefits of travelers associated with needs of such an experiential sense of fun, high-image to the tourists, and other cognitive stimulations.According to respondents, Bali as a tourism destination which is generally very pleasant and left a lasting impression, especially the hospitality of its people, culture, diverse tourism appeal, and has a religious aura.Most of the respondents argued that Bali is a tourism destination that is suitable for all family members.

b. Factors of direct and indirect attributes of destination
This factor has Eigen value 3.797 and total variance equal to 9.262% (Appendix 4).Direct destination attribute of Bali as a tourism destination is a vital attribute that should be e-ISSN: 2407-392X.p-ISSN: 2541-0857 there to be major destination associations.This attribute determines prospective tourists whether or not to choose Bali to be visited.The main direct attribute of Bali tourism destination is related to cultural tourism.Other direct attributes are Bali has many tourist objects and attractions that are becoming very important added value to strengthen brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.For example, Bali has the attractiveness of the natural beauty, beautiful beach, exiting lakes, stunning mountains, nicely agrotourism lanscape, and terraced rice fields.This makes Bali as a destination for cultural tourism with much "bonus" tourist attraction that attracts tourists around the world.
Indirect destination attribute of Bali as a tourism destination is an aspect of destinations attribute that not directly connected physically to the destination but strongly support the existence of destinations such as the price information of travel packages to destinations, general information about the tourist attraction in the destination, the service information obtained during on the destination and alike.Strength of brand equity Bali as a tourism destination is strongly influenced by the availability of adequate information concerning prices, attractions, facilities, security, and so on.Tourists that visit Bali feel easily obtain information regarding to their trip to Bali.This is what strengthens brand equity Bali as a tourism destination.

c. Factor of reliability and tangibility of destination
This factor has Eigen value 2.643 and total variance equal to 6.447% (Appendix 4).Reliability of Bali as a tourism destination is Bali's ability to provide an accurate and a reliable service according to the needs of tourists mainly the needs of food, drink, and accommodation during the holidays.Brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination is also supported by the evidence of the promise offered.Based on the analysis, the high rating on brand equity achieved by Bali as a tourism destination indicated that Bali is able to realize the promise given to the fact that is seen, felt and experienced during tourist holiday in Bali.
The tangibility of Bali as a tourism destination is the Bali's ability to provide physical facilities, supporting equipments, and the appearance or performance of tourism workers.Bali has been able to provide supporting facilities of tourism (amenity elements) such as representative accommodation, good and hygienic restaurants, and food and drink stalls that are easy to be reached and so forth.Bali is also capable of providing accessibility to reach the tourism objects easily such as tourism infrastructure, highways, transportation facilities, rest area, and directions to attractions.The brand equity of Bali is also greatly influenced by the performance of tourism workers.Tourism is related to its product as well as its service.The service in this context relates to the ability of tourism workers to perform good services to tourists.This will support Bali tourism destination brand equity.

d. Factor of assurance and emphaty of destination
This factor has Eigen value 2.236 and total variance equal to 5.455% (Appendix 4).Assurance aspect of Bali as a tourism destination related to hospitality, skills, and the ability of tourism workers to provide a feeling of safety, comfort, and belief to tourists during vacation.Tourism is an industry that highly depends on the issues and images.Advances in information technology help in enforcing these conditions.Negative events in destinations will instantly be monitored by potential tourists who would intend to visit the destinations.
Based on the analysis, Bali as a tourism destination is able to guarantee the hospitality of local community, the standard of tourism worker skills, the ability to provide a sense of security, convenient, and reliable so as to support the high brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.Excellent service experienced by tourists in Bali is also the key elements that make tourists satisfied with the destination, improve the image of the destination, and will eventually be able to increase Bali brand equity as a tourism destination.e-ISSN: 2407-392X.p-ISSN: 2541-0857 Empathy is the personal attention and care given by tourism workers to tourists during their vacation in Bali.The basis of empathy is the sense of care of others.Tourists feel very empathetic with local community and tourism workers in Bali and this only occurs since Balinese develop an open minded way of thinking to others.Associated with the tourism context, the attention and care of the tourism workers and the local community to the tourists during their vacation in Bali is important because it will shape the brand image in the eyes of tourist destinations are geared towards brand equity of Bali as tourism destination.

e. Factor of recognition and recall of destination
This factor has Eigen value 1.820 and total variance equal to 4.440% (Appendix 4).Destination brand recognition is the minimal level of tourists consciousness to Bali as a tourism destination.Before tourists choosing Bali as a tourism destinations to be visited, usually prospective tourists will assess by the strength of Bali brand value and make a decision based on the perception established related to Bai as the tourism destination.High brand equity of Bali is starting from a familiar destination name ("Bali") for prospective tourists arousing curiosity deeper, searching for information needed, perceived on the basis of the information obtained and finally assess how perceptions of the destination brand is concerned.Bali, in this case has an advantage because the name of Bali as a tourism destination brand is already strong among diverse tourism destination in the world.Consequently, the strong brand destination name will increase the brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.
Generally, the destination is known for its distinctive uniqueness and different from other destinations and becomes destination identifier known as the destination icon that has the ability to represent the destination.Bali as a world tourism destination has a nuance of Hindu cultural icon that expressed in almost all tourist objects and attraction, for example the main tourism objects in Bali like Tanah Lot Temple, Ulun Danu Beratan Temple, Uluwatu Temple, Taman Ayun Temple and others.The excellence of Bali is having many cultural based tourim objects as Bali icons.
Destination brand recall is the ability of tourists to remember Bali as a tourism destination when tourists were asked to name brands in the category of tourism destination.It is the process of brand destination recalling and remembering in such situation that respondent did not need any help to remember the brand destination Bali.The stronger level of brand recall the higher level of brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.

f. Factor of common psychological attributes of destination
This factor has Eigen value 1.717 and total variance equal to 4.189% (Appendix 4).Common psychological attributes of Bali as a tourism destination consist of hospitality of local community and the natural beauty of the destination landscape that support the image of Bali.Generally, respondents who visit Bali have certain psychological expectations before making decicion to travel.Things that attract tourists to visit Bali are usually come from the information about destinations attributes that easily obtained through electronic media, internet, or friends and family.
Beside of tourist attraction offered by the destination, tourist decision to visit Bali is also driven by the host community that respect tourists, gives a friendly relationship, and warm towards foreigners.In Bali, mainly tourism objects are managed by local people through customary village and this happens only if local community aware about the tourism and contribute to the strong brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.

g. Factor of common functional attributes of destination
This factor has Eigen value 1.512 and total variance equal to 3.688% (Appendix 4).Common functional attributes of Bali related to price (value for money), the climate that is suitable for tourists, type of accommodation choices that are suit to various abilities of tourists that make Bali has brand equity more competitive than others and will attract tourists to come.Bali as a world tourism destination has an advantage in this aspects so that these factors streghten brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.e-ISSN: 2407-392X.p-ISSN: 2541-0857

h. Factor of unique functional attributes of destination
This factor has Eigen value 1.296 and total variance equal to 3.161% (Appendix 4).The unique functional attributes of destination consists of icons and events that shape the image of the destination.Bali has set cultural tourism as its direction in developing tourism industry which explicitly stated that the culture related to Balinese Hinduism.It is expressed through the way of life of local community in everyday activities, rituals, customary, arts, architectures, and so on.These will be unique functional attributes possessed by Bali as a tourism destination that build the image of Bali as a destination for cultural tourism and support the strong brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.

i. Factor of behavioral loyalty
This factor has Eigen value 1.197 and total variance equal to 2.919% (Appendix 4).
Respondent"s behavioral loyalty to Bali occurs when respondents have a pattern of repeat their visit to Bali, repeat their purchase of travel packages to Bali, or recommend Bali as tourism destination to others.This is the driver of the high brand equity of a destination.Bali as a tourism destination is very strong in this regard.Based on respondents" characteristics, the average repeated visits to Bali is 5.48 times, average length of stay in Bali is 18.08 days and frequency to recommend Bali as a tourism destination to others is 7.33 times.Seeing this data indicates that Bali has strong brand equity as a tourism destination.

j. Factor of destination awareness
This factor has Eigen value 1.142 and total variance of 2.784% (Appendix 4).This factor is a condition where the respondents are aware of Bali as tourism destination and become a starting point to build a destination brand and compete with the competitors.However, the equity of brand destination depends on the confirmation between respondenys expectations and the reality in destination.Furthermore this determines the level of respondent"s satisfaction and loyalty toward Bali as a tourism destination.Instead, there will be no brand equity of tourism destination if the destination is not known at all by potential tourists.Therefore, although this factor is not dominant in influencing destination brand equity but can not be disappeared in the process of building brand equity.It is not impossible that a tourism destination has a high leve of brand equity will not be able to compete with competitors if the destination does not receive attention anymore for the long time.Maintaining destination brand awareness is a must since awareness is a foundation that affects the level of brand equity Bali as a tourism destination.

k. Factor of attitudinal loyalty
This factor has Eigen value 1.014 and total variance equal to 2.472% (Appendix 4).Attitudinal loyalty is a desire of respondets to continue the relationship or association in the future with Bali as their tourism destination.Based on analysis, attitudinal loyalty to Bali as tourism destination is significant affecting Bali brand equity.
It can be viewed as an attitudinal evaluation from respondents on Bali as tourism destination.If respondents are satisfy then this will likely be the behavioral loyalty and realized into actual action like extend their length of stay in Bali or recommend Bali as a tourism destination that is worth to be visited to others.The consequence of this is the emergence of attitudinal loyalty will increase the brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination.

Conclusion
Factors that significantly influence brand equity of Bali as a tourism destination are: (a) symbolic and experiential benefit of destination, (b) direct and indirect destination attributes, (c) reliability and tangibility of destination, (d) assurance and empathy, (e) brand destinations recognition and recall, (f) destinations common psychological attributes, (g) destination common functional attributes, (h) unique functional attributes, (i) behavioral loyalty, (j) destination awareness, and (k) attitudinal loyalty.
The strength of brand equity for tourism destination including Bali depends on destination capability to enhace its uniqueness as a basis of competitive advantage compare to competitors.Maintaining the dominant factors that influence the strength of brand equity can e-ISSN: 2407-392X.p-ISSN: 2541-0857 be used as a basis to develop destination branding strategy to expand market segment, choose the right target market and anchoring destination position in world market competition.