| Summary: | Based on academic research and international recommendations on
tourism quality, this study sought to develop a wide-ranging tourism
quality scale adapted for Portuguese contexts. The research included
creating and validating a marketing subscale to measure local public
stakeholders’ perceptions of marketing strategies focused on improving
tourism destinations’ quality. A self-administered survey was
conducted with a sample of Portuguese municipalities including, more
specifically, 134 local public stakeholders commonly considered local
destination marketing organisations, as well as public policy- and
decision-makers. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were
performed to measure destination marketing quality, resulting in the
identification of two factors: (1) image and promotion and (2) product
differentiation. The proposed instrument was shown to have validity
and reliability and to be a useful measurement tool. The findings
highlight local public stakeholders’ responsibility to ensure the quality
and competitiveness of tourism destinations’ marketing and provide
multiple useful practical and theoretical implications and insights to
guide future research.
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