The fuchsia destination quality brand: Low on quality assurance, high on knowledge sharing

Quality has been widely recognised as a source of competitive advantage in tourism (Poon, 1993; Fayos-Sola, 1996; Laws, 2000). Given the shift that has taken place from interfirm competition to interdestination competition (Go and Govers, 2000; Crouch and Ritchie, 1999), a need to focus on the quality management at the destination level has been identified (Laws, 1995 and 2000; Woods, 2003). In an attempt to address this need, a case study of the Fuchsia destination quality brand, West Cork, Ireland, was carried out. The findings revealed that whilst the Fuchsia brand did not appear to function as a powerful signal of quality to the customer, it did provide a support system which fostered an environment conducive to knowledge sharing amongst the tourism service providers applying for brand membership. This was mostly as a result of the policy of compulsory training for brand applicants. The paper reveals the way in which policies and programmes undertaken to overcome reluctance to participate in a destination quality assurance system also helped remove obstacles to knowledge sharing amongst tourism suppliers at the destination.