Brand personality of Balikesir province as a destination: Analysis of Wikipedia contents

In tourism, it is extremely important to benefit from information technologies and web pages in order to achieve the management and marketing goals of destinations, to create awareness, information and convenience in the purchasing preferences of potential tourists who constitute the target groups. In channels with open-source features such as Wikipedia, page visitors with the potential to become tourists are provided with the opportunity to access all kinds of information about destinations and learn what destinations promise. The content created on Wikipedia is enriched with information added by users, and the perception of destination brand personality created with the support of relevant public institutions and academics offers the advantage of increasing the loyalty of tourism stakeholders, especially potential tourists. In this study, by taking into account the brand personality model of Aaker in Wikipedia, an area that seems to be ignored in academic circles, the content analysis of the Turkish and English pages in the Wikipedia for Balıkesir center and its districts as a tourism destination was carried out by using the Nvivo Program. According to the findings of the research, it has been concluded that there are differences in the Turkish and English pages of the contents for the Balıkesir destination, the images are shared at a very low level, the content for tourism attractions is quite inadequate, the expressions that will reveal the personality of the destination are almost non-existent, and the page contents needs to be improved. Keywords: Balıkesir, destination, brand personality, Wikipedia, content analysis Bir destinasyon olarak Balıkesir ilinin marka kişiliği: Vikipedi içeriklerinin analizi Özet Turizmde destinasyonların yönetim ve pazarlama hedeflerine ulaşabilmesi, hedef kitlesini oluşturan potansiyel turistlerde farkındalık, bilgi birikimi ve satın alma tercihlerinde kolaylık yaratılabilmesi için bilgi teknolojilerinden ve web sayfalarından yararlanmak günümüzde son derece önemlidir. Açık ...