The Process of Implementing a Place Brand Based on a Multilevel Approach: The Case of the Municipality of Masquefa

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article explores the well-known problem of creating a local brand. This time it is a town in Spain - Masquefa. The article is correctly structured and the methods used are well selected. The literature seems insufficient and I would suggest correcting this.  Although the article is not innovative and does not add anything new to the research problem, I would recommend its publication as another case study.  

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kind review, which helped us to improve the manuscript. According to your suggestion, we have incorporated some new references on place branding theory that will help to delimitate better our theoretical framework. Hope this can solve the minor queries you had about our work. Thank you very much.

Changes are colored in the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for the opportunity to read the article. 

-        Abstract poorly written. Check line 20-22 , without any major elements? Name is also a brand element. Need to improve the presentation – language. 

Introduction

 

-         -          The place brand not clearly defined and explained.  The authors need to explain the purpose of branding Masquef? is it to increase visitors or economy, then need to present the statistics. Problem not clearly defined.

 

-          Line 47 – Present and breakdown -? Language need to be improved

-          Line 47-53? What is your objective? Develop branding strategy for Mawquef…which is not clearly presented. Line 50 b) framework is not objective…it should be part of methodology.

 2. Theoretical Framework

 

- Line 66 – 69 not clear.

No theory or model is used for this study.

 3. Method

 

- Framework of the research not explained. Few points from line 549 – 592 need to be presented here.  The research is exploratory in nature and authors covered good number of stakeholders. Sample size is not presented.

 4. Findings and conclusion

 

The finding need to be highlight the key findings of your research and provide directions to the municipality. Recommendation related to communication not required as it is not studied. The conclusion should be based on the research findings. Contribution of your research not presented.

Once again, thank you for the opportunity, and wish you good luck.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Need to improve the language

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kind review, which helped us to improve our manuscript. Changes are colored in the text.

According to your suggestions, firstly, we’ve checked the English of our document in order to modify those aspects, words or sentences that needed clarification (e.g. the abstract). 

Language issues have been corrected by an external translation company using change control. 

Secondly, we’ve revised the introduction of the article to clarify the objectives of our research, as well as to incorporate a paragraph to inform about the aims of the Masquefa Town Council when defining a new place brand. This paragraph can situate better the research problem for readers.

Thirdly, we strengthen which was our “methodological model” in the beginning of the methodological section. As it was informed in the original manuscript, the model has been based on the PhD thesis of the first author of this article, but it has had a theoretical redefinition/update, which has been included in the references too. Furthermore, we informed about the size of the focus group sample, as well as we should mention that as the original manuscript states, the sample for the questionnaire has been a “convenience sample” due to the aim of the researchers was to incorporate the maximum number of residents in it.

Finally, we’ve reshaped some paragraphs of the conclusions to explain better the main contributions of this research.

Thank you very much for your work and suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I had the pleasure of reviewing the manuscript titled "The process of implementing a place brand based on a multilevel approach: the case of the municipality of Masquefa" to be considered for publishing in "Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050)". The research requires some substantial improvements. Specifics are below:

*The manuscript is good and examines a significant topic; the authors addressed it in a broadly acceptable methodology.

*The introduction: The introduction needed more proper rationalization for the study. The Author(s) only introduced the concepts and some previous studies that investigated these concepts. The introduction should provide a reasonable justification for the study and reflect its significance. In other words, why this study is important? How is it different from previous studies? How can the study contribute to tourism literature?

* The paragraph in lines 75 and 80 needs further clarification.

* Title 2.2 needs to be addressed in the methodological section clearly.

*The information in Title 3 must comply with “Masquefa” only and within the framework that makes it a tourism brand only (I mean, it must summarize).

* I think that the theoretical section could have been divided so that from each section we could extract a question that would be answered in the methodology section.

* Aren't tourists considered beneficiaries whose opinions can be used to build the Masquefa municipality's brand?

* In title 4.1, the sources that were relied upon to conduct the SWOT analysis must be mentioned.

*In Table 6, only the job position of the respondents can be mentioned.

* I believe that the data that falls under the title 5.1.  can be obtained without opinion polling.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thanks a lot for your kind review, which helped a lot to improve the manuscript. Changes into the new manuscript are colored.

According to your suggestions, firstly, we’ve checked the English of our document in order to modify those aspects, words or sentences that needed clarification. Secondly, we’ve modified the introduction of the article to clarify the objectives of our research, as well as to incorporate a paragraph to inform about the aims of the Masquefa Town Council when defining a new place brand. This paragraph can situate better the research problem for readers.

Secondly, we justified in the methodological section why the participants of the questionnaire where exclusively the residents. In that sense, we should note that the aim of the Town Council was not to define a destination brand for tourism. The aim was to strengthen its place brand and this needs to monitor the expectations and perceptions of residents. This has been clarified in the methodological section. Furthermore, we changed table 6 as you suggested, we’ve incorporated the documents that allow us to develop the SWOT analysis, as well as we’ve reduced a little the contextual framework of Masquefa (Title 3), eliminating several sentences and paragraphs.

We should note that, although comments from the reviewer where helpful, we did not modify the theoretical framework as he/she suggests due to we think that the current structure gives more fluency to the text and allow readers to understand the theoretical approach that allow us to build our methodological model and the future discussion of the results.

Thank you for your helpful feedback.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Looks fine.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your kind review. 

All the best,

The authors.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I think the authors should adhere more to the comments mentioned in the first round

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your new review. Regarding your comments, we tried to address most of the comments that, in the first round of revisions, we decided to keep like in the original manuscript. In this second round, we have focused our efforts in following two of your comments:

2. “* Title 2.2 needs to be addressed in the methodological section clearly”. In this case, we incorporated this section into the methodology to introduce for readers the qualitative techniques that we used during the field work. The concept of “change agents” is interesting to justify why it is important to incorporate qualitative techniques in the methodological skeleton of the research. Your suggestion was very suitable and has helped us to improve the manuscript.
3. “* I think that the theoretical section could have been divided so that from each section we could extract a question that would be answered in the methodology section”. In this case, we have divided the theoretical framework in two subsections to justify better the narrative. We explained what place branding is and why place branding strategies are suitable to improve local and regional governance. We think that now this theoretical framework fits better with the discussion of our research.

Thank you very much for your review. Hope now you find our revision suitable for you.

All the best,

The authors.