Correspondence: Tom Baum, University of Strathclyde 94, Cathedral Street Scotland Glasgow G4 0LG UK. Tel: +44 141 548 3954; Fax: +44 141 552 2870; e-mail: t.g.baum@strath.ac.uk

¹is Professor of Tourism and Hospitality Management at the University of Strathclyde. He has primary and masters degrees from the University of Wales and a PhD in tourism from Strathclyde. He is widely published in the field of tourism and has taught, researched and consulted in a range of countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean.

²is a lecturer at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, Castlebar Campus. Prior to this, she was a lecturer in the University of Ulster and has worked extensively in the tourism industry. She is researching for her PhD in the area of strategic management.

³is a lecturer at the University of Ulster, Portrush where she teaches human resource management. Her PhD research is on the management of cultural diversity in the hospitality sector.

Received 7 June 2007; Revised 7 June 2007.

Abstract

This paper addresses destination brand image in tourism marketing and assesses the contribution of tourism's workforce to such image and branding, considering the role that employees play in visitors' interpretation of their experience of destination and place. The focus of this paper, therefore, is on the role of people in the image of place and the potential for contradiction in imagery as the people who inhabit and work within a place change over time. At the same time, both those who promote a destination and those consuming the place as visitors may well have expectations that are fixed in imagery that does not accord with that held within the wider community. The location of this paper is Ireland where the traditional promotion of the tourism brand has given a core role to images of people and the friendliness of the hospitality of Irish people, represented by largely homogeneous images. Recent growth in the 'Celtic tiger' economy has induced unprecedented and large-scale migration from countries across the globe to Ireland, particularly into the tourism sector. This paper raises questions with regard to the branding of Ireland as a tourist destination in the light of major changes within the demography and ethnicity of its tourism workforce.