Destination marketing and the service-dominant logic: A resource-based operationalization of strategic marketing assets

• The resource-based view is considered within the context of destination marketing.
• The service-dominant logic is used to construct a destination resource hierarchy.
• Three stakeholder-based categories of strategic marketing assets are identified.
• A DMO's market-based assets are operationalized as a second-order latent construct.
• The implications of this construct for future research are discussed.

Despite the popularity of the resource-based view of the firm as a theoretical mechanism for the explanation of organizational performance, this framework has received surprisingly little attention within the context of destination marketing organizations (DMOs). The purpose of this research is to enhance extant perspectives of destination competitiveness by considering the destination marketing function from the dual theoretical lenses of the resource-based view of the firm and the service-dominant logic of marketing. In particular, this research focuses on the resource classification schemas underpinning these two frameworks and proposes a conceptual extension of their core phenomena to the domain of destination marketing. Within this discussion, a conceptual and operational definition of competitive market-based assets is proposed. This multifaceted construct is discussed as a potential outcome of market-oriented destination marketing and as an antecedent to DMO performance.