The destination marketing and media profile – travel motives nexus amid tourism crisis: the mediating effect of the nation brand

PurposeThe ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of destination marketing and media profiling to re-engage international tourists. However, potential crisis-induced nation brand (NB) deficits must be addressed to re-ignite tourism demand. The study examines the possible intervening effect of the contemporary NB in the international destination marketing and media-travel motives nexus.Design/methodology/approachA deductive quantitative study was undertaken with an online Amazon Mechanical Turk sample of n = 454 respondents. Hypotheses were tested using PROCESS Macro, Model 4.FindingsThe results show that the NB [people and negative events] had a practically significant partial mediating effect in the destination marketing – nature-cultural oriented travel motivation nexus.Practical implicationsNew insights are provided via a practical model which facilitates the measurement of potential nuances in the influence of destination marketing and media profiling on leisure tourists' travel motives amid crises. The intervening effect implies that a better understanding of the NB as an indirect antecedent to travel motivation may result in more effective crisis communications and tourism recovery-oriented marketing.Originality/valueThe study is amongst the first to extend marketing and behavioural theory to explore the interplay between the marketing and media profile, a nation's brand and tourists' travel behaviour amid a crisis. The study addresses a discernible dearth of knowledge related to the influence of the NB on tourist behaviour from an emerging market perspective.