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The Morocco brand from the Moroccan emigrants’ perspective

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Abstract

The aim of this work is twofold: on the one hand, it consists of determining the main elements of the Morocco brand constructed and transmitted by Moroccan emigrants, and on the other it explores whether this brand is convergent and coherent or, on the contrary, diverges depending on the socio-demographic profile of Moroccan emigrants. To achieve these objectives, data from 131 Moroccan emigrants living in Spain were collected through a questionnaire. The findings sum up the most relevant factors of the Morocco brand transmitted by emigrants to the local population in Spain. These elements are: environment, infrastructures and activities, culture and innovation, as functional attributes of the country brand; and the contrast of old and new life, including hospitality, religion, traditions but also modernity, cosmopolitism and multiculturalism, and lifestyle as emotional attributes. Moroccan emigrants highlight emotional attributes more than functional ones to characterise Morocco. Our data also show that Moroccan emigrants construct and transmit a convergent and coherent brand, despite their differences in age, gender and education. At a theoretical level, we conclude that this work contributes to a scarce literature on the analysis of destination branding from an internal point of view, and more specifically with regard to the role of migration on the brand construction. Moreover, from a practical point of view this study offers important insights to be considered by destination management organisations (DMO) in order to align all the multiple voices from different stakeholders of a destination brand into a coherent and non-contradictory message. In addition, this study entails implications for DMO regarding the appropriate use of emigrants as potential ambassadors of a destination brand.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Management, Rovira i Virgili University, Av. Universitat, 1 (43204), Reus, Spain

    Fatimazohra El aouni

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  1. Fatimazohra El aouni
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  2. Rosalía Cascón-Pereira
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  3. Ana Beatriz Hernández-Lara
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Additional information

1has a degree in Private Law (Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco) and a Master’s degree in Tourism Planning and Management (Rovira i Virgili University (URV), Tarragona, Spain). She is a PhD student at URV, currently working on her PhD thesis about ‘Building the Morocco brand as a tourist destination: the role of emigrants’. El aouni is also member of the Research Group on Economy and Tourism, which is part of the Department of Business Management at URV.

2has a degree in Business Management and Administration (University Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain) and also a degree in Psychology (University of Barcelona, Barcelona). She did her PhD on the professional identity of nurses and doctors who were appointed to managerial positions. Cascón-Pereira currently works as a full-time permanent lecturer in the Department of Business Management, at Rovira i Virgili University and collaborates as a clinical psychologist and researcher at the Pain Unit in Hospital Joan XXIII. Her main research interests are social identity, emotions and chronic pain.

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El aouni, F., Cascón-Pereira, R. & Hernández-Lara, A. The Morocco brand from the Moroccan emigrants’ perspective. Place Brand Public Dipl 10, 55–69 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2013.27

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