Culture, sustainability and tourism destination image: a comparative study on the sub-regions of Brazil

Abstract The use of 'sustainability' as a factor of market differentiation has been recurrent among tourism destinations. However, the image of these settings is not free of influence of external factors, such as culture. In countries with large territorial dimensions, such as Brazil, this phenomenon tends to be even more evident. This is because, in cultural terms, there is not only one, but five different 'Brasils' (Ribeiro, 1995). Thus, this study aims to analyze how the image of the sustainability of tourism destinations can be influenced by the cultural characteristics of the Brazilian consumers’ sub-regions of origin. The innovative character of the study stems from the adoption of an idiographic approach to the cultural dimensions of Hofstede (1980). Five focus groups were conducted among Brazilian nationals, within the different cultural regions of the country, and the data were analyzed through content analysis technique. The results showed that, from the five subregions analyzed, the 'Brasil Sulinas' presented a greater discrepancy regarding the image of the sustainability of tourism destinations. This fact was related to a higher propensity to values corresponding to high levels of masculinity and low aversion to uncertainties. On the other hand, the consumers from the other subregions tended to show similar patterns of thought among themselves, yet contrary to the 'Brazil Sulinas'.摘要：将“可持续性”作为市场差异化要素的做法在旅游目的地中频频出现。然而，此类目的地的形象并非不受文化等外部因素的影响。在国土幅员辽阔的国家（如巴西），这一现象往往更为凸显。究其文化根源，巴西并非仅有单一文化体，而是存在五种各具特色的“巴西”文化意象（Ribeiro, 1995）。本研究旨在探析旅游目的地的可持续性形象，如何受到巴西消费者所属原籍子区域的文化特征的影响。本研究的创新之处在于，针对霍夫斯泰德（Hofstede, 1980）提出的文化维度，采用了个案研究取向。研究在巴西境内不同文化区域招募本国国民开展了五组焦点小组访谈，并通过内容分析法对采集的数据进行分析。结果显示，在五个被分析的子区域中，巴西南文化区（Brasil Sulinas）的旅游目的地可持续性形象呈现出更为显著的差异。该现象与其群体具有更高的男性化价值观倾向以及更低的不确定性规避特质密切相关。另一方面，其余子区域的消费者则展现出较为一致的思维模式，且与巴西南文化区的消费者观念相悖。