How Can Cities Build Their Brand through Arts and Culture? An Analysis of ECoC Bidbooks from 2020 to 2026

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, the research questions in this manuscript were of high practical significance, the research methods were suitable for the research questions, the data sources was reliable, the analysis process and results were clear, and the research conclusions were convincing. There are still several questions to be improved.

1. The abstract should be more concise.

2. The literature review fails to provide a whole picture of the field. It should be better organized, theory oriented, with up to date references.

3. The analysis was too simple. Table 1 seemed interesting, but how the qualitative analysis was conducted?

4. Strategies should be more macro and directional, rather than micro and specific. The 10 strategies of developing a city brand through culture are actually some specific tactics. There are also too many, some of them can be merged.

5. In the discussion, the findings should be placed in the whole picture of the theoretical progress and compared with previous literature, to show the theoretical contribution of this study.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments are attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The quality of English can be improved. The authors need to focus on structure and grammar of the sentences.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear author,

I strongly recommend that you resubmit your work after considerable revisions.
This work has promise in the spatial branding topic, but the findings, debates, and conclusions offer implications and answers to the study concerns.
Most importantly, the authors ought to review this journal's rules and manuscript samples.

Dear author,

I strongly recommend that you resubmit your work after considerable revisions.
This work has promise in the spatial branding topic, but the findings, debates, and conclusions offer implications and answers to the study concerns.
Most importantly, the authors ought to review this journal's rules and manuscript samples.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors:

The subject under study is very relevant.

Cultural identities need sustainable foundations. 

As far as the manuscript is concerned, I think there are some major flaws that affect its scientific soundness.

I suggest you revisit the entire manuscript and to that end I've highlighted some of my reflections/comments:

- The abstract requires another structure:  see, e.g.: https://www.nature.com/documents/nature-summary-paragraph.pdf

- don't understand why at the end of the abstract they wrote "ECoC= European Capital of Culture"

Please note that some text in manuscript is in bold type. It is unclear why this is in this style.

Note: The manuscript isn't all in the same font.

- In section 2 there are 6 highlights, e.g. "Building a city brand through cultural marketing strategies.". Why are these and not others? There's a need for rationale. Are they the constructs of this research?

- The coherence of the designation of section 3 is unclear. The objectives were described in the Introduction.

- You should explain: “This qualitative research of secondary data”.

- In the Introduction he describes three research objectives and in section 3 he says there are four. Without this coherence, there is no coherence in the research questions.

- Throughout the article, the same ideas are repeated unnecessarily.

- See lines 283-285: Is this objective 1? Perhaps is research question 1.

- The references (Scopus or Wos articles) are not current (last 3 years).

Therefore, dear author, scientific coherence between aims, research questions and methodology is necessary.

To conclude: I think it must be clear the research design components: the purpose of study, the study setting, unit of analysis, sampling design, time horizon, data collection method, and measurement of variables. I don't think that's the case in your article.

 Rew

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I am satisfied with the reviews and improvements made by the authors. The quality of the manuscript has significantly improved compared to the previous version. I accept the reviewed version as it is.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your valuable input. 

Sincerely,

The Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for this review opportunity.

For me, this manuscript is difficult to read. Editing and referencing should be redone and resubmitted. It is unclear how to portray methodological reasoning. Where did the findings come from? Methods and outcomes must be related in order to develop conversations. Every single section says something different. The authors should clearly demonstrate the process of method design.

Thank you for this review opportunity.

For me, this manuscript is difficult to read. Editing and referencing should be redone and resubmitted. It is unclear how to portray methodological reasoning. Where did the findings come from? Methods and outcomes must be related in order to develop conversations. Every single section says something different. The authors should clearly demonstrate the process of method design.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors, 

Your manuscript is much improved.

I have just two recommendations/comments

- Figure 1 is very unclear. It is your own? If it is not your own, you should remove it. If it is by you, remove "Ashworth, G.(2009), The instruments of place (…)”, as it should only appear in the references section. I would like to draw your attention, if the figure is your own, to the accuracy of the wording of the research objectives in the figure (They should be the same as those who wrote in section 3).

- it seems to me that what's in lines 658 and 659 should be moved to section 1 line 136.

Rew 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 4,

Thank you so much for your recent feedback.

In order to answer to your suggestions, we made the following modifications of the paper:

Point 1 “Figure 1 is very unclear. It is your own? If it is not your own, you should remove it. If it is by you, remove "Ashworth, G.(2009), The instruments of place (…)”, as it should only appear in the references section. I would like to draw your attention, if the figure is your own, to the accuracy of the wording of the research objectives in the figure (They should be the same as those who wrote in section 3).”

Response 1:  We were happy to make the suggested adjustments.

Point 2 “it seems to me that what's in lines 658 and 659 should be moved to section 1 line 136”

Response 2:  We moved this text as per your recommendation.

Thank you again for your valuable input.

Sincerely,

The Authors

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Methodologies and research design should be rewritten.

The revised section doesn't show methodological themes.

Moderate English revision required

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf