2.4.1. Destination Awareness

The term destination awareness was introduced in behavioural studies of consumer and was described in the tourism decision process by Goodall and Ashworth (1993). Aaker (1991) defined destination awareness as "the ability of a potential buyer to recognize or recall that a brand is a member of a certain product category". Brand awareness increases a destination's potential of being preferred more often than other unknown destinations (Kladou and Kehagias 2014). It also brings a better chance of being chosen by potential customers among all rival destination brands (Hoyer and Brown 1990).

Staying focused on destination brand awareness is important because it provides optimistic information and creates positive emotions that are likely to increase the possibility of making a purchase (Baldauf et al. 2003). Destination brand awareness also plays a critical role in tourists' destination quality perception (Buil et al. 2013; Nikabadi et al. 2015).

Awareness is only the first and necessary step in the decision process, and may lead to visit a destination; on the other hand, it is insufficient, because the very awareness provides only a set of choice (Goodall and Ashworth 1993). For getting more tourist visits, destination brand must first achieve awareness and then a positive destination image.
