Thainess Service Language” Mind-Map for national branding in creative economy

This knowledge economy has brought with it new fields of study and approaches that are contributing to a more robust understanding of the role of knowledge for the creation of human and

3 Principle, Theory, Rational and/or Hypotheses

Our economy is transforming in new ways every day, from an older industrial system founded on raw material to a creative economy bound only by the limits

of human talent and imagination From the recent decades, a series of gradual changes in our economy and society have combined to give us fundamentally the new system of working and living I call the age we are entering the

creative age because the key factor propelling us forward is the rise of creativity

as the prime mover of our economy Not just technology or information but human creativity Innovation doesn’t come magically from an invisible hand

As Stanford University Economist Paul Romer has long argued, great advances have always sprung from ideas

Thai Government 0fficials currently aims at generating value-added products and services in the potential benefits of a “creative economy.” According to Dr Narongchai Akaraserani, economic advisor to the prime minister, encourages the whole nation to utilize creativity for building GDP growth The creative economy concept was basically defined generally as the combining of talent, creativity, knowledge and innovation with cultural heritage to generate GDP and to increase the country’s competitiveness In addition, the importance of emerging creative industries is that they convert human capital into social

capital, which transform to competency and to productivity New global

competition for talent and the challenges it brings with it One traces the rise of the creative economy, identifying the factors for long-term economic status turns one harnessing the full creative potential of each and every human being

in nations

The Thailand government has adopted UNCTAD’s creative economy model, with some classification adjustments according to UNESCO Creative economy

is a subjective concept that is now unique definition until now However, the UNCTAD defined the “creative economy” which can be summarized as

• It is a feasible development option calling for innovative

multidisciplinary policy responses and interministerial action

The focus industries originally were divided into four categories: cultural

heritage, arts, media and functional creation Under the government’s policy, three additional important service sectors have been incorporated, which are cultural tourism, Thai food and Thai traditional medicine Therefore, the

national creative classification to focus on are: advertising, animation,

architecture, crafts, design, fashion, film and photography, historical and

cultural tourism, interactive leisure and software, music performing and visual arts, publishing, television and radio, Thai food and Thai traditional medicine

It is important for Thai entrepreneurs and service providers to understand the best practices in specific target sectors in order to product the best quality and add the most value to their goods and services by tapping creativity and talents from the role models The TCDC, which is the famous Office of Knowledge Management Development (OKMD), serves as a country’s major creativity learning centers However, as Thailand are very service-minded Not only tangible needs, Thais also want to satisfy the mind, through intangible service Therefore, the government should extend their policies from satisfy the

functional needs of the five senses to another important sense, the mind

Furthermore, the government should implement new service language as the new requirement to serve as the mental benefits

However, Thailand lacks a Thai national service agency aimed at tackling

relevant and emerging problems facing the service sector and to increase

national competitiveness as a priority Like many countries in Asia, the service industries have been one of the most rapidly growing sectors in Thailand The

typical services offered are in the service cluster in transportation, construction, retailing, wholesale, finance and tourism (Kasikorn Research Center, 2006) Competitive priorities typically included price (cost), quality, dependability, and flexibility (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984; Johnston, 1988; Ferdows and De Meyer, 1990; Vickey et al., 1993; Butler and Leong, 2000; Li, 2000; Kathuria, 2000; Ward and Duray, 2000; Boyer and Lewis, 2002; Kazan et al., 2006) Others have stated that customer care represented an emerging priority for

maintaining the firms’ competitiveness (De Meyer et al., 1989; Miller and Roth, 1994; Frohlich and Dixon, 2001; and Lee, 2002) In addition, responsiveness and time to market for a new product development could be regarded as

important competitive priorities due to the shorter life cycle of a typical product (Leong et al., 1990; Chen, 1999; and Blanchard, 2004) From the service-

provider perspective, the focus on competitive priorities had focused primarily

on satisfying and fulfilling customers’ expectations such as the SERVQUAL (incorporating reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangible elements) model by Parasuraman et al (1988) According to Phusavat et

al(2007), it is important to gain awareness on perceived value-added service priorities which will support the effective service process and practices The overall research findings indicated that the quality criterion was perceived to be the most important priority for maintaining and improving competitive

advantage Any country that place a greater focus on world-class service will have increasing returns on their investment due to the multiplier effect of their competitive advantage leading towards creative economy

value creation

Source: Dr Noppasit Chakpitak (2009)

These forms of capital are the input of the national productivity Four of these forms of capital (institution, human, knowledge and culture) are the foundation

of the creative economy They can be influenced by human creativity They are interrelated and can influence each other which can have a multiplying effect

‘Knowledge is power’ – and it is up to those with access to knowledge to

decide if that power will continue to be used over others to increase the gap between rich and poor or if it will be a power to empower visions and realities

based on an inclusive earthly ethic Currently, “The wealth of a nation no longer depends on its ability to acquire and convert raw materials, but on the abilities and intellect of its citizens” (TFPL, 1999, p 2) This knowledge economy has brought with it new fields of study and approaches that are contributing to a more robust understanding of the role of knowledge for the creation of human and social capital as key factors in societal development as the creative

economy initiative The creation of these types of paradigm shift is in the

interest of multiple sectors of society and benefits society as a whole Thai entrepreneurs should make the best use of Thailand’s cultural richness,

traditions, and cultural heritage as economic multipliers for economic growth Nowadays, processes related to knowledge creation, learning, and innovation have a social impact just as significant as economic initiatives (OECD, 2001, p 17)

Since the dynamic changes from industrial to service based economy, the gross domestic product (GDP) of Thailand has expanded significantly In 2005, the service sector accounted for 48 percent of the country gross domestic product (Manasserian, 2005) Currrently, Thailand should concentrate in the

knowledge-based creation to provide best creative service industries In

countries like the US, the service sector accounted for 69 percent of the GDP by

1989 In the UK in 1990, the service sector accounted for 62 percent of GDP and 60 percent of GDP in Germany For emerging economies like China, the service sector contributes to 48 percent of GDP in 2001, but it decreased to 33 percent (Malhotra et al, 2005)

In this research, “Thainess service language” will be explored, identified, and modeled for intellectual capital value creation for bringing Thai culture to

become a driving force of the creative economy The mental literacy known as mind-maps of Tony Buzan will be utilized for effective knowledge

representation and Buzan’s multiple intelligence will be extended based on Thainess service language best practices Using service language as the

creative metaphor, non verbal communication as mental literacy to increase national productivity (GDP) of the country as well as provide mental benefits to the country (GNH) In addition, this study will provide Thainess service

language model as product country image (PCI) and Tourism Destination

image (TDI) platform to enhance national brand image as the driver of creative

economy The knowledge management will be utilized for modeling “Thainess service language” as Intellectual capital value creation for world-class customer satisfaction.

Research Questions:

1 What is “Thainess service language” taxonomy and classification?

2 How can “Thainess service language” add as value to creative

economy?

3 How can “Thainess service language” add value to world-class

customer satisfaction?

4 Can knowledge management be utilized for collaboration of

knowledge capture, creation, representation, sharing and

dissemination to enhance creative economy?

5 How to create model for knowledge sharing and dissemination?

4.1 SECI model can be utilized for knowledge capturing

4.2 Best practice can be utilized for knowledge modeling

4.3 Intellectual capital can be utilized for knowledge classification

4.4 Mind-maps can be used for knowledge representation and dissemination.Keywords: TSL (Thainess service language) mind-map, Intellectual capital, creative economy, branding

Keywords: TSL (Thainess service language) mind-map, Intellectual capital, creative economy, branding

Knowledge Management Theories and Tools:

Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) define two realms of knowledge: Tacit and explicit Explicit knowledge is easily identified, easy to articulate, capture and share from written expressions, manuals, and reports On the other hand, tacit knowledge consists predominantly of intuition, perception, feeling, value and beliefs, usually not only difficult to express but also difficult to capture and transfer Of the two, tacit knowledge carries the higher value in that it is the essence of intellectual capital and innovation

Dana et al, p 11 (2005) claims that managing successful knowledge and intellectual capital in the Network era is a multidimensional challenge It requires understanding and interconnection of for inextricably linked domains (see figure): culture, content, process, infrastructure, and of which also have a tacit as well as explicit dimension

• SECI Model:

The SECI model and COP theory will be employed from capture, analysis, validation, modeling, sharing, and learning the new knowledge creation for personality enhancement model for Thai people The knowledge of Thai

traditional and local wisdom has many important special tacit characteristics, which requires exploring and involving both explicit and tacit natures

According to Nonaka (1998, 2000), the transformation of knowledge, SECI Model, has four phases and the process will repeat like a spiral Some tacit can

be transferred straightforwardly to other people as tacit knowledge Tacit

knowledge can also be expressed and externalized into explicit knowledge, which can be combined and therefore new explicit knowledge can be produced Explicit knowledge should be internalized and become one’s own tacit

knowledge before it can be applied and generated All these transfer and

transformation of knowledge creation produce within appropriate Ba, which are physical and virtual places, tools and environment facilitating the learning

processes

• Intellectual capital:

Until now, the definitions of intellectual capital have been inharmonious

(Nazari and Herremans, 2007) The diverse definitions for intellectual capital and measurement are difficult to benchmark with competitors and leading

organizations However, a number of classification schemes divide intellectual

capital into the categories of external (customer-related) capital, internal

(structural) capital, and human capital (Bontis, 1996; Bontis and Fitz-enz, 2002;

Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Roose et al., 1997; Stewart, 1997; Sveiby, 1997)

The distinction has been broadly accepted in facilitating the preparation of

“intellectual capital accounts” which are employed differently in making

decisions regarding organization value creation that are more encompassing than decisions made beforehand (Guthrie and Petty, 1999; Sveiby, 1997) No exact unified definition of intellectual capital is found in many literatures;

however, three major common observations are proposed:

(1) The concept of value creation to the organization often proposes (2) Same characteristics of common definition are: knowledge, skills,

know-how, experiences, intangible assets, information, processes and value creation

(3) Human capital, organization capital, structural capital, customer

capital, relation capital are widely accepted

Knowledge map

Knowledge map involved locating important knowledge in the organization and then presenting some sort of knowledge as a list or picture The knowledge map will be focused on people, document and database (Davenport and Prusak, 1998)

 Knowledge map is the tool of transferring knowledge into a graphical form that is easily understandable (Speel et al.,1999)

 The knowledge map is a navigation aid to both explicit and tacit

In this study Buzan Mind Map will be utilized for knowledge mapping and representation and extended for mind capital as value creation leveraging from Thainess-based Tony Buzan, awarded the Lifetime Achievement for Creativity and Innovation by the American Creativity Association, is the inventor of Mind Map, the most powerful thinking tools He has achieved the status of ‘guru’ in the fields of creativity and brain development The enlightenment from Tony Buzan has opened my eye about key mental literacy for the “Thailand Thinking Future.” Service at the traditional way has always focused on the function benefit of the body The new approach that I proposed focuses on the holistic approach to serve body and mind To achieve this goal we have to capitalize from the four forms of capital: human, culture, knowledge and institution Their inputs lead to greater satisfaction as it services body and mind A relaxed and balanced mind leads to thinking clearly without distractions, which leads to creative intelligence Creative intelligence according to Tony Buzan is the ability to think in new ways- to be original, and where necessary, “stand apart from the crowd.” With the input of Thainess, creative intelligence becomes

“enlightenness intelligence.” This has the effect of clarity of mind With this new “mind capital”, the person has the ability to set the highest standard of conscious thinking as well as acting appropriately according to the noble

acceptable world values of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative from The

Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics (1785), "Act as if the

maxim from which you act were to become through your will a universal law

Best Practices

According to American Productivity and Quality Center (1997) noted that there

is no one size fit all “ best practice” because best for one may not best for

everyone Best practices are the practices that have been shown to produce

superior results; selected by a systematic process; and judged as exemplary, good, or successfully demonstrated Best practices are then adapted to suit a particular structure and contextual specific A study by the European Center for TQM (Jarrar and Zairi, 2000) concluded that the best practice process for the

“effective transfer of best practices” is made up of six major stages which are: searching, evaluating, validating, implementing (transferring and enabling), review and routininzing However, internal transfer is the most difficult stage

of best practices Transfer is identifying and learning from best practices and applying them in a new configuration or new place ( O’Dell and Grayson,

learning In this research study, learning in action will be categorized into 2 types, which are must do list and intelligent learning The researcher will first explore, observe and set the effective requirement criteria for personality

enhancement programs as “must do lists.” Then, the best-practice from role models will be searched and identified

ICH Framework

The “intangible cultural heritage” framework is manifested in collecting

primary and secondary knowledge from traditional and local wisdom through human expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe and traditional craftsmanship

WIPO: World Intellectual Property Organization

WIPO provides practical tools concerning the protection of traditional

knowledge (TK) and traditional cultural expressions (folklore), access to and benefit-sharing in genetic resources WIPO’s work a wide range of capacity-building activities, include practical intellectual property guidelines and

information technology tools for managing IP issues when recording, digitizing and disseminating intangible cultural heritage, being developed within the Creative Heritage Project In addition, WIPO provide guideline to “Folkloristic

approach” will be one of the important elements of the study It is the body of

expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history,

proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular

population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of Thai culture, subculture, or group It is also the set of practices through which those

expressive genres are shared Traditional cultural expressions are integral to the cultural and social identities of indigenous and traditional communities, they embody know-how and skills, and they transmit core values and beliefs As cultural and economic assets, their protection is linked to the promotion of creativity, enhanced cultural diversity and the preservation of cultural heritage

Economics model

Major Economics Model utilized in this study will based on Humanistic

Economics extended from Maslow Hierarchy of needs and Buddhism

Economic In addition, Gross National Happiness (GNH) to enhance the

national GDP level will be explored

Mind Capital

With this new achievement of mind capital, a person has new means of

achieving panna or intellectual wisdom As a matter of fact, the

socio-cultural-cognitive in Thai ways is interconnected, combined with wholeness of human, organization, society to national products and service identity A new

development paradigm is emerging that connects the human capital to culture capital to enhance national income of the economy As one looks at the history

of the development of economic thought in the west, one sees that the part that

is missing is an adequate model of the reality of human behavior, usually value human capital However, the use of mainstream economics’ current

de-model of homo economicus initially introduced by John Stuart Mill and further elaborated by Alfred Marshall, views human as a rational social unit, perfectly informed and self-interested agent who desires economic wealth It reflected the sensual pleasure of a human being This statement reflects another major

turning point in Economics from using reasoning based on empirical evidence

to explain situations to the use on assumptions Mainstream economics

degenerate human value to some ignorance: viewing human being only as a consumer Such narrow understanding reflects in utilization of resources and environment in a devastating way That actions precipitated by mainstream economics will directly lead to social destruction caused by rapid depletion of natural resources and deterioration of the environment As everyone is

competing for more material things, such competition will turn into highly devastation, causing social disintegration and paralysis, causing human

destruction in the end

After being satisfied by more material consumption, human beings will not be happier and the society as a whole will not be better off It is because in order

to have everything operating under the key “efficiency”, competition must be emphasized and free market system must be encouraged In the end, the

competition lead to destruction of valuable resources as well as an environment that will be conductive to humanity The key point is that the happiness

anticipated from more consumption or material acquisition does not represent truly happiness

Most western economic theorists views human as static, resulting in

dehumanization It reduces human capital to that of a machine While western psychology studies the evolution of human mind through observation of human behavior as a reflection Applying to human study can also be weakness The method of enquiry cannot explain systematically how such mental evolution can be made It can not explain contribution factors for such situation The missing part of such analytical method is the lack of tools for an internal

systematic understanding of mind

Buddhism Economics

The Buddhist method of analysis focuses directly on this issue and results on more complete understanding of human needs and nature Consequently,

Buddhism approach is able to explain various conditions for mental

development according to various level of needs from difference hierarchies of value Eastern philosophers observed close dynamic relationships between human beings and all other things in the nature The focus was more on natural harmony and happiness Buddhist Economics will be explored as one of the best applications for a study of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in Thailand since 95% of Thai population are Buddhism Therefore, Buddhism paradigm incorporates an understanding of Thai people behavior and nature into economic model This paradigm will also serve as an analytical tool to understand human beings in greater width and depth

However, the Buddhist Economics serves as a new body of knowledge, not only for Buddhists, but for everyone who wants to be awakened and to be enlightened This new interpretation of economics is consistent with both the human way of life and a sustainable future for the world Parallel with the Buddhist Economics, there is the concept of “Sufficient Economy” since 1974

This proposal turns in the form of “New Theory” of farming It can be

considered as a proper way to carry out economic activities according to

Buddha Dhamma

Having analyzed the difference between western and eastern views on

economic model, the one that is closest to Buddhist economics is Humanistic Economics since the beginning of 1960’s Humanistic Economics focused on human need which has been equated with the concept of value It classifies the human needs ranging from material value or material need and progressing through social value to moral value

The common ground of both humanistic and Buddhist economics is that both focus on human needs instead of want or desire or cravings as a driving force Human needs are the basic foundation for all human beings regardless of time, race, ethnicity, tradition and culture The only difference between the two is the growth in human value As humanistic economics roots in western culture and civilization, its analytical and classification tool rests mainly on behavioral science with high emphasis on the concept of “self” Humanistic economics already systematically give the light in human nature from external analysis of human being Buddhist economics explains the functioning of the human mind,

mainly focus on non-self or anatta, which is the starting point for the creation

of panna or human intellectual capital Pana is the most important concept in Buddhism knowledge, while atta or self is an illusion

Neuro Economics ( Brain-Mind-Body)

The five aggregates consists of rupa (corporeality), vedana (feeling), sanna (perception), sankhara (mental formation) and vinnana (consciousness), are the

causally conditioned element of existence formation forming a being or making

us the so called “self” Rupa or corporeality serves a door to allow external information to flow inside and consists of six important parts as the receiver of information The are the eyes for seeing, the ears for hearing, the nose for

smelling, the tongue for tasting, the skin for sensing, and most importantly, the mind for understanding

Most westerns understand Happiness from pleasure or hedonism It is a

pleasure from acquisition or sensual pleasures or kamasukha However, the

higher of happiness can be achieved without the acquisition of things This can

be find out from Thainess service It is the condition of the more purified

mind , serving customer from inside, resulting from giving or contributing such

as giving friendship or metta, or helping others relief from dukkha or karuna, happiness from having calm mind or Samadhi, and happiness from being

surrounded by natural beauty or sappaya It is a truly mental condition

emanicipation of the mind from all defilements of to understand everything in its own nature These service-minded capital especially metta and karuna will create the happiness spiral for sustainable society

Eight-fold noble path are proposed to eventually achieve the nibbana

The goal of Buddhist Economics is for human beings to achieve sukkha without any burden to oneself or others Utility and satisfaction theory will be

emphasized

Purposes of the study

The aim and objectives of the research are

 To study key service world-class organizations

 To create Thainess service language mind-map

 To create national branding for creative economy by using “Thainess service language”

 To achieve world-class standard of customer satisfaction by using

“Thainess service language”

Literature Review

Thai culture

There are two primary perspectives from which a culture can be understood, namely through ‘emic’ and ‘etic’ classifications Epic is a description of typical global value, attitude, manner of a typical behavior that can be applied to other cultures Many cultural behavioral dimensions of Thai culture can be viewed

by “looking from the outside in” within the international business frameworks

By integrating the model o the most influential models of culture, namely

Hofstede, 1980, Hall, 1976 and Trompenaars, 1997, summarized Thailand as follows:

• Collectivism

• Hierarch

• Relation-based

• High-text

An emic account is a description of behavior or belief in terms of cultural

specific, by looking from inside out The indigeneous cultural mental language based on the cognitive construct of kreng jai, bhun khun, nam jai, hen jai and sum ruam Structurally, from the global perception, the Thai culture can be classified based on Etic perspective as first impression management manner especially Thai people has the “impressive Smile” widely known as Land of

Smile

The role of cultural context

Edward Hall (1976) presented the highly influential concept of high and low context as a way of distinguishing between and understandingt different cultural

norms.A high-context communication behavior can be defined as one in which most of information is already in the person while low-context culture

cokmmunication is from the quantity of the information in the explicit code (Samavor and Porter, 1995, p.101)

Thailand has repeatedly ranked as one of the strongest high-context culture (Meal and Andrews, 2009; Hollesen, 2004; Keegan, 1999) Thai people carry within them highly developed and refined notions of how most interaction will unfold, of how they and the other personal will behave in a particular manner Thais have more indirect behavioral style of communication: less explicit with highly nonverbal communicate.In Thailand, people are more likely to covey the message by manipulating the context because of the collectivist culture One of the most important goals of communication is to maintain harmony and face saving Saying ‘no’ is difficult because it is impolite The relationship building

is important The following table demonstrates the comparative characteristics

of high-context and low-context cultures

Hofstede’s cultural differences model is based on data collection known as ‘the Values Survey Module’, collecting from a questionnaire of 116,000 ployees in branches and affiliates of IBM in fifty countries and three regions The

summarization of results reflects the national cultural characteristics dimension

of a country (Hofstede, 1980, 1997)

According to Hofstede’s model of work value, Thailand’s culture is relatively hierarchical, collective, feminine and with moderately more likely to avoid uncertainty

The word culture apparently originates with the Latin culture, which is related

to cultures, which can be translated as “cult” or “worship.” This meaning is helpful in understanding the use of the term Members of a cult believe in

specific ways of doing things, and thus develop a culture that enshrines those beliefs

Culture Definition

A definition by Terpstra and David (1985) serves to delineate what is

meant by culture in this context:

Culture is learned, shared, compelling, interrelated set of symbols whose meaning provides a set of orientations for members of a society These orientations, taken together, provide solutions to problems that all

societies must solve if they are to remain viable

To sum up the above definitions, culture can be described as the collection of values, beliefs, behaviors, customs, and attitudes that distinguish a society A

society’s culture provides its members with solutions to problems of external adaptation and internal integration

Culture can be studied at different levels from organizational, business ,

regional, national, to international level However, in this study a national culture will be focused since it is best embodied in the values Thai people hold.Thai culture shapes people’s beliefs and attitudes and guide normative behavior

to perform in everyday life

Values have been described as enduring beliefs that specific modes of conduct

or states of existence are socially preferable to their opposites (Rokeach, 1973)

A value system is seen as a relatively permanent perceptual framework that influences an individual’s behavior (England, 1978) Cultural values establish the norms or standards by which everything in a society is judged Not all

members of a cultural group will hold exactly the same values (Hofstede,

1984) A value system represents what is expected or hoped in a society, not necessarily what actually occurs In the past 20 years, researchers have

attempted to develop a composite picture of culture by studying the differences among cultural values This has been done in two ways Some studies have looked at the cultural dimensions that reflect similarities and differences among cultures(for example, Hofstede, 1980) Others have used these findingsto

group countries into clusters of nations with similar cultures(Ronen and

Shenkar, 1985) The purpose of this article is not to review these studies, but to look at an alternative way to classify cultural values

A Classification study of Chinese Culture

Part of Thai culture is embedded from Chinese’s value and belief Many of Thai population are come from China Therefore, it is important to understand Chinese classification as an influence on Thai culture

Two most widely used models are Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s(1961) five dimensions and Hofstede’s (1984) Value SurveyModel (VSM) However, the problem with these modelsisthat the scope istoo narrow or simplistic with only four or five variables Both modelscould not be used asa true representation

of the complexity of a national culture, particularly in the case of Hofstede’sVSM that is mainly concerned with business culture rather than national

culture

An alternative method is the one used in an earlier study by the Chinese Culture Collection (1987) After consulting a number of Chinese social scientists, the survey developed a list of 40 key values For the purpose of this article, these

40 cultural values have been reexamined and fully amended to produce a

new list of Chinese Culture Values (CCVs) shown in Table 1a (in English) After an extensive review of literature on Chinese culture and management, the author believes that these following values are equally important but missing from the original list They are: bearing hardship, governing by leaders instead

of by law, equality/egalitarianism, li/propriety, people being primarily good,

kinship, veneration for the old, deference to authority, conformity/group

orientation, a sense of belonging, reaching consensus or compromise, avoiding confrontation, collectivism, not guided by profit, guanxi (personal connection

or networking), attaching importance to long-lasting relationship not gains, morality, Te (virtue, moral standard), Wisdom/resourcefulness, being

gentleman anytime, obligation for one’s family, and nation, pragmatic/to suit a situation, contented with one’s position in life, orientation to the past,

continuity/being part of the history, taking a long range view, the way (Tao), fatalism/Karma (believing in one’s own fate), Yuarn, harmony between man and nature, and the unity of Yin and Yang

These core values can be summarized into eight categories, namely national traits, interpersonal relations, family (social) orientation, work attitude, business philosophy, personal traits, time orientation and relationship with nature

branding framework for designing successful destination strategies This

exploratory study seeks to determine key factors that affect the strategic

branding of destinations

There is a paucity of academic research in this field (Pike, 2005) in an industry with daily revenue of over US$ 2 billion (Future Brands, 2006) This is a

growing industry with less than 12 percent of the world population flying

internationally (IATA, 2007; WTTC, 2007) In 2006, Travel and Tourism

(T&T) contributed 10.3 percent to world GDP, had 12 percent of global

investments and 8 percent of all jobs (WTTC, 2007; Arnold, 2007)

Competition is fierce with 194 nations clamoring for a share of the tourist’s heart, mind and wallet This indicates a need for a more strategic approach to branding as brand position leads to greater economic value (Matear et al., 2004; Davis, 2002), growth and welfare A study by Fan (2006) found that brand owners outperformed their OEMs in terms of profits by a ratio of 50:1 A strong international marketing strategy improves financial and brand performance through identification and achievement of specific brand values (Wong and Merrilees, 2007; Meenaghan, 1995)

Brand image and Brand personality

Brand image and brand personality are key components of brand loyalty and brand positioning (Plummer, 1985; Keller, 1998) Although several models exist to explain the two concepts, much ambiguity surrounds the relationship between brand image and brand personality Poor conceptualization and

a lack of empirical studies have hampered progress in understanding this

relationship

At the theoretical level, two issues can be identified: definitional

inconsistencies and the interchangeable use of the terms brand personality and brand image Patterson's (1999) review of the branding literature identified 27 definitions of brand image and 12 definitions of brand personality In some instances, brand image has been defined in terms of brand personality (e.g., Hendon and Williams, 1985; Upshaw, 1995) The terms brand image and brand personality have also been used interchangeably in the literature (e.g.,

Smothers, 1993; Graeff, 1997) Patterson (1999) concluded that most studies fail to distinguish between the concepts of brand image, brand personality, brand identity and user image Still, some scholars have attempted to provide some theoretical explanations of the nature of relationship between brand image and brand image (e.g., Plummer, 1985; Patterson, 1999) For these authors, brand image is conceptualized as a more encapsulating concept and, as such, has a number of

inherent characteristics or dimensions including brand personality, user image, product attributes and consumer benefits For example, in their brand model,

Heylen et al (1995) posit that brand personality and brand identity are two antecedents of brand image However, this conceptualization contrasts withKapferer's (1997) identity prism, in which personality and self image

are seen as antecedents of brand identity, along with physical, relationship, reflection and culture dimensions Thus, the lack of theory development has resulted in much confusion, and this impedes the establishment of managerial implications In the tourism literature, destination image has been identified

as a key component of destination loyalty However, to the best of our

knowledge, no study has yet investigated the relationship between destination image and destination personality

Destination branding

“A brand is a consistent group of characters, images, or emotions that

consumers recall or experience when they think of a specific symbol, product, service, organization or location” Simeon (2006, p 464) Branding must

“attract and keep customers by promoting value, image, prestige, or lifestyle” (Rooney, 1995, p 48) It must communicate

information, minimize risk or increase trust (Knox, 2004), help identify or recall key factors, differentiate from competition and facilitate

recommendations (Palumbo and Herbig, 2000) For destinations this is

challenging as they attract a diversity of customers and the delivered product is often highly customized with the customer in control

Destination brands are similar to corporate brands, as they act as umbrella brands for a portfolio of leisure, investment and business tourism, and

stakeholder and citizen welfare products (Trueman et al., 2004) Goodwill is

created through a unique identity by considering the diversity of stakeholder needs (Hatch and Schulz, 2003) Destinations like corporations are subject to increasing market complexity (globalization, internal and external government policies, foreign exchange fluctuations and natural environment) and increasing marketing costs, which warrants a corporate branding approach as posited by Xie and Boggs (2006) Hence corporate branding strategies can be extrapolated

to the destination context Destination brands are also similar to product and services They have both tangible and intangible components, are mostly

service dependent, and can bepositioned through the use of slogans (Pike,

2005) Country of origin (COO) applies in the destination service context

(Javalgi et al., 2001) It requires greater emphasis on factors internal to the organization, especially the role of employees (for destinations,

this refers to citizens) in the brand building process (Harris and de Chernatony, 2001)

Quality of Experience (QoE)

A new kind of economy – the experience economy – is emerging in which increasing numbers of industrial practitioners realize the importance of

capitalizing on the customer experience (Carbone, 1999; Pine and Gilmore, 1999) Pine and Gilmore (1999) conceptualized the customer experience by entertainment, education, escape, and

estheticism These four categories differ according to the distinct level of their absorption into and participation in the products and services on offer

Capturing the theme of experiential value, Schmitt (1999; 2003) suggested that industry pursue experiential marketing management in an effort to manage the customer’s entire experience of a product and a brand He disassembled

experience into five types: sense, feel, think, act,

and relate Sense experiences enable customers to satisfy their need for

estheticism Feel experiences refer to customers’ perceptions of fun and

pleasure Think experiences satisfy customers’ desire to seek opportunities to broaden their knowledge and learn new things Act experiences reflect their personal ties with a brand and company, which helps them to develop

individual actions and lifestyles Finally, relate experiences involve the social networks and interrelationships among customers, which then produce a feeling

of belonging to the community and to society Cai and Hobson (2004) adapted and extended the experience economy and experiential marketing concepts to the lodging industry They provided a four-state continuum of the lodging

marketplace by equating the state of experience as the fourth economic

progression along with that of brand In a similar vein, in the experience

economy, a successful hotel brand aims to ensure positive and multidimensional experiences for its guests so as to win a differentiated position in their minds

On their websites, Langham Hotels are promoted as creating new hospitality experiences that exude graceful and timeless elegance and blend a sense of the

past with the contemporary The Marco Polo Hotels’ website states that guests are warmly welcomed to their “home” and offered an authentic hospitality experience.

Experience economy

In today’s experience economy, there is an economic transformation from

service toward experience (Pine and Gilmore, 1999) This requires the

pragmatic implementation of experiential (Schmitt, 1999) and hedonic

marketing (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982; Hirschman, 1984) The studies of experience in the tourism and hospitality industry have mainly been based on

five models (Prentice et al., 1998) The primary model is the exploration of

tourist typologies, including the package of sociological and psychological needs that tourists desire to fulfill through traveling For instance, Cohen (1979) discussed five types of tourism: recreation, diversionary, experiential,

experimental and existential Tourists who desire recreational and diversionary experiences are likely to seek out opportunities for pleasure and entertainment, whereas tourists of the latter three types prefer to learn about different cultures

or acquire new skills (Uriely and Belhassen, 2005) Similar studies have

examined the leisure experience (Mannell and Iso-Ahola, 1987) In fact, these different types of experiences show that tourists have a wide range of

needs that are located at different levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

(Maslow, 1943, 1970) Pearce and his colleague (Pearce, 1988; Pearce and Lee, 2005; Pearce, 2005) successfully applied this concept to the tourism and

hospitality industry by developing a revised version of Maslow’s hierarchy, termed the “travel career ladder/pattern.” However, the needs that can be drawn from this ladder/pattern are limited Sociopsychological needs are better

captured by the push factors of motivation theory (Chon, 1989; Jang and Cai,

2002; Rishi et al., 2008) These include the need for relaxation (Zhang and Lam, 1999), escape (Oh et al., 2007), nostalgia (Pearce and Lee, 2005),

sensation (Oh et al., 2007), freedom (Pearce and Lee, 2005), novelty (Zhang and Lam, 1999), pleasure (Oh et al., 2007), fantasy (Hirschman and Holbrook,

1982), safety (Otto and Ritchie, 1996), family togetherness (Zhang and Lam, 1999), human relationship enhancement (Zhang and Lam, 1999), knowledge

and education (Oh et al., 2007), egoenhancement (Otto and Ritchie, 1996), and

self-achievement (Pearce and Lee, 2005) These types and dimensions of

experience have been proved valid for the hotel industry (McIntoch and Siggs,

2005; Oh et al., 2007; Otto and Ritchie, 1996) Therefore, it has been

determined that a well-managed hotel brand should be able to satisfy these experiential needs in the creation of experiences (Keller and Lehmann, 2006) Klaus and Maklan (2007) maintained that a superior and profitable brand in today’s service-dominated competitive world delivers QoE rather than quality

of service There is a paucity of knowledge about the experiences of hotel

guests McIntosh and Siggs (2005) suggested that customers in the hotel

industry are concerned with whether their experiences have a unique character and are personalized, homely, of quality, and value-added Zins (1998)

successfully explored guests’ experiences as related to the satisfaction of their personal needs in five middle- and upper-class theme hotels in

Austria The psychographic concepts therein explained customers’ intrinsic needs, paralleling Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1943, 1970), and push motivational factors Otto and Ritchie (1996) also identified four experience dimensions of hotel services, namely, hedonics, peace of mind, involvement, and recognition These four dimensions of the hotel stay experience were

presented in ascending order, as per Maslow’s hierarchy (Maslow, 1943, 1970)

In a more recent study, Oh, Fiore, and Jeoung (2007) explored hotel guest’s experiences in the U.S bed and breakfast industry, a special category of the hotel industry This exploratory work was based on Pine and Gilmore’s (1999) four conceptual realms of experience: entertainment, education, escape,

and estheticism

Brand Equity

From the foregoing discussion, it is evident that brand equity can be

disaggregated into four components: brand awareness, brand associations, QoE, and brand loyalty Specifically, brand awareness refers to “the ability of a

potential buyer to recognize or recall that a brand is a member of a certain

product category” (Aaker, 1991, p 61) Although brand associations often

reflect the search and emotional attributes of a hotel brand image (Aaker, 1991),

in the present study, the term is restricted to search attributes alone The

emotional or experiential attributes are thought to be associated with QoE,

which measures hotel guests’ perceptions of the extent to which their psychological needs have been fulfilled Brand loyalty is defined as a biased response, expressed over time, to one or more hotel brands within a set of such brands (Dick and Basu, 1994; Franzen, 1999; Oliver, 1999) Overall brand equity fundamentally manifests the power of a brand name to make the

socio-affiliated product distinct from unbranded product

Religion as a service branding tools

Icons

The best-known Buddhism icon is the Meditative Buddha This carries an

enormous symbolic language by representing a way of life, a belief system, and

a community traditions and practices for millions of Thais This Buddha iconic message can be multilayer meanings and representations However, Busshas have been glonally adopted by a multitude of non-Buddhists of other faiths who are seeking and emlightenment in one form or another The Buddha image can

be seen all over Thailand in pendants, in printing, in statue, and in print They appear in various respective form of material substance in Thai society Buddha

image is central to the formation of Thai society, providing a sense of belonging and a share of core values.

Ten tools of sensory branding, serving as the ultimate role model for branding are follows:

1 A unique sense of belonging

2 A clear vision with a sense of purpose

3 Take power from your enemies

In Thailand, superstition becomes tradition Religion does provide a role model

in terms of offering traditional and lifetime wisdom with a depth rooted

meaning Many brand builders can learn from the way religion has

communicated it message through myth, symbol and metaphor over long time Thais absorbed dialog, folklores, stories and captivated by the history, symbols, and historical footprints and written expressions They touch us at a

fundamental emotional level, which precludes any rational discussion

Currently , most people are searching for emotional fulfillment and spiritual connection The steady attraction to alternative religions has become a fact of life

Self-presentation

The creative economy is new paradigm shift that embrace economic, cultural, technological and social aspects of development at both macro and micro

national economic levels The “Thainess Capital” will be an initiative

economic driver used to foster national intellectual capital for building

competitive national brand equity benefit as the key driving forces for economic growth and value promoting development in this rapid changing era Creativity

of Thainess Capital will be shaped as the formulation of new ideas for national branding to foster service economy, enhancing productivity and economic

growth of Thailand Thainess Capital will be created from the Thai normative wisdom, values and beliefs of Thai people as self-presentation appearance and behaviors in everyday life to perform the best performance

Thainess capital creation is associated with originality, imagination, inspiration, ingenuity and inventiveness from the inner mental model representing as Thais identity and values for delivering best service-minded and expressing creative hospitality ideas; associated with knowledge, these intangibility are the key essence of Thainess intellectual capital Thainess capital Knowledge

management of Thai creativity, culture and economic will be modeled towards

a multidisciplinary model centered on the service dominant of Thai economy

A Luxury Value Perception

Following a comprehensive understanding of the luxury construct, all relevant present and potential value sources of the consumer‘s luxury perception should

be integrated into one single model Generally, values can be regarded as

beliefs that guide the selection or evaluation of desirable behavior or end states (Schultz and Zelenzy 1999) With regard to consumption values which directly explain why consumers choose to buy or avoid particular products (Sheth et al 1991), different types of values influence consumers‘ purchase choices: A customer‘s luxury value perception and the motives for luxury brand

consumption are not simply tied to a set of social aspects of displaying status, success, distinction and the human desire to impress other people, but also depend on the nature of the financial, functional and individual utilities of the certain luxury brand Pointing to the fact that luxury value lies in social and individual as well as in functional and financial aspects, it is important to

synthesize all relevant cognitive and emotional value dimensions in a

multidimensional model

Drawing on existing luxury research literature as well as Bourdieu‘s capital theory (1986) proposing economic, cultural, and social capital, our model

extends the Vigneron and Johnson five-dimension framework in order to

enhance the current understanding of consumer motives and value perception in relation to luxury consumption The question of what really adds luxury value

in the consumer‘s perception is defined in this paper through the existence of four latent luxury value dimensions:

1 Financial Dimension of Luxury Value Perception – The financial

dimension addresses direct monetary aspects such as price, resale price, discount, investment, etc It refers to the value of the product expressed

in dollars and

cents, and to what is given up or sacrificed to obtain a product (e.g., Ahtola 1984; Chapman 1986; Mazumdar 1986; Monroe and Krishnan 1985).

2 Functional Dimension of Luxury Value Perception – The functional dimension of luxury refers to the core benefit and basic utilities that drive

the consumer based luxury value such as the quality, uniqueness,

usability, reliability,

and durability of the product (Sheth et al 1991)

3 Individual Dimension of Luxury Value Perception – The individual

dimension focuses a customer‘s personal orientation on luxury

consumption and addresses personal matters such as materialism (e.g., Richins and Dawson

1992), hedonistic and self-identity value (e.g., Vigneron and Johnson 2004; Hirschman and Holbrook 1982)

4 Social Dimension of Luxury Value Perception – The consumption of luxury

goods appears to have a strong social function Therefore, the social dimension refers to the perceived utility individuals acquire by consuming products or services recognized within their own social group(s) such as conspicuousness and prestige value, which may significantly affect the evaluation and the

propensity to purchase or consume luxury brands (Vigneron and Johnson 1999, 2004; Bearden, and Etzel 1982; Brinberg and Plimpton 1986; Kim 1998)

These key dimensions of luxury value perception encompassing the financial, functional, individual, and social aspects are strongly correlated but not

identical with each other as shown in Figure 1 (see image below)

Nonverbal communication

Mehrabian (1969) first introduced the term immediacy cues, which includes eye contact, interpersonal distance, body lean, and body orientation, and defines immediacy as “communicative behaviors which enhance closeness to another” (Mehrabian, 1969, p 203) According to Mehrabian (1971), nonverbal

immediate behaviors are actually abbreviated forms of approach and avoidance For example, the lifting of a hand to greet someone at a distance is an

abbreviated reach to touch, while pushing back in a chair when one wants to end a conversation may be considered an abbreviated movement of departure Variations of these behaviors create the closeness associated with immediacy and contribute to the verbal messages of the sender Mehrabian also stated thatindividuals’ behaviors could contribute to feelings of like or dislike and could make the interactional partner feel either good or bad about self

Rifkind and Harper (1993) found that nonverbal immediacy behaviors include (a) eye contact, (b) relaxed body posture and positioning, (c) gestures, (d)