What Is New in Place Branding: Concepts, Issues, and Practices

Dear colleagues,

Place branding aims to attract four main “groups”: tourists, businesses, residents, and human resources. An interesting contradiction arises from the fact that although tourists are considered to be the most crucial group in place branding, the spatial dimension in tourism marketing has not gained the deserved research interest. As time passes, it seems that there are more questions than answers concerning place branding in the tourism and hospitality industries.

Place identity has gained special importance in recent years when place branding has shifted to social instead of economic approaches that emphasized competition. Is place branding a relatively new phenomenon, the logical evolution of place marketing, or part of it? If the aim is a viable and effective place branding, as well as tourism and hospitality, then a strategic approach to planning is required. Thus, place branding should emphasize the future, but how can it deal with the present and how much does it rely on the past? What are the attributes of a strategic tourist marketing plan (STMP), and should it be based on research? How can its success and failure be evaluated? How, and at what depth, can results be measured? Are slogans and logos as crucial as most people believe? Is imitation or necessity the main motivation for the elaboration of the STMP? Assuming that place branding, like tourism, is a viable condition for development, does this mean that it is also necessary?

Tourism and hospitality, as well as place branding, will not be the same in the coming years, mainly due to the emergence and/or growth of the following indicative factors (which could function as potential topics for the Special Issue):

• Climate change
• COVID-19
• Overtourism
• Special interest tourism
• Creativity/ innovation
• Initiatives beyond the traditional stakeholder participation (e.g., co-creation)
• An approach going beyond GDP (e.g., focusing on quality of life)

Prof. Dr. Alex Deffner
Guest Editor

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