background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(48, 48, 48);">Over the past month, I’ve shared insights from my research on the “Join Me in Jamaica” destination marketing campaign, exploring the gap between visibility and participation, the multiple layers of authenticity, and the paradox of place attachment. As we count down to the start of the Eleventh International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies, I want to leave you with one final thought: how do residents actually grant a destination brand its legitimacy?

In destination marketing, we often assume that residents either fully support or actively resist a brand. However, my research demonstrates a much more nuanced reality. Resident responses actually exist on a spectrum of "Negotiated Legitimacy", ranging from strong endorsement, to qualified acceptance, all the way to active resistance.

Interestingly, many residents adopt a pragmatic "qualified acceptance". They might recognise a campaign's strategic value for attracting international tourists and accept it conditionally, but they will still emotionally distance themselves from it if it doesn't reflect their lived reality. This is a critical lesson for Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs): a lack of public resistance or "silent tolerance" does not equal genuine advocacy.

The ultimate takeaway is that authenticity is not something a DMO can simply construct and project; it is socially negotiated by the residents themselves. If we want communities to truly champion a destination brand, we must move beyond performative inclusion, simply putting residents in a campaign, or in this case ina video, and commit to structural inclusion, where local voices are given meaningful influence in shaping the narrative from the ground up.

I am incredibly excited for the conference to kick off on Monday! I invite you to watch the full session where I dive deeper into this framework, and I look forward to answering your questions and continuing the conversation with you all in the online discussions.

Destination branding isn't a monologue, it's a negotiation