This paper discusses the impact of electronic commerce on the development of
strong tourism destination brands. Electronic media have the potential to create
strong direct links between individual tourism suppliers and their customers,
thereby possibly undermining collective efforts to create strong destination
brands. In addition, electronic media may have the potential to strengthen the
process of destination brand creation, by facilitating interaction and
cross-selling between complementary producers within a destination. A case study
methodology is used to evaluate the recently developed Brand Western Australia
(Brand WA) marketing campaign. This strategy attempted to develop a strong
centralised tourism destination brand for the state of Western Australia and the
paper reviews the branding strategy to date, the promotional and distribution
channels used, and the challenges and opportunities faced by WA suppliers when
using electronic channels on the Internet. It is concluded that despite the
enormous growth in the use of electronic commerce, it is not being used to its
full potential. Suppliers appear to be using the Internet in a random,
disorganised, uncooperative way.
