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The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the various activities and processes undertaken by a particular national tourism organization (NTO) in carrying out its goal of developing a destination brand.

A single qualitative case study is primarily employed, though the study draws on data from multiple sources of information.

The study affirms the co‐creation and stakeholder viewpoints from having modeled the branding process and outlining the complex interaction of destination‐branding activities in the country‐level context. The study provides a critical discussion of the different approaches to branding, and the adoption of branding philosophies, in the destination context.

Though this paper is based on a single country case study, it provides a strong and empirically grounded framework for identifying, in‐depth, several key destination branding processes and activities in great detail.

The co‐creation view of brands and branding is a neglected area in destination‐branding literature. Destination‐branding research, in particular, lacks grounded models that profoundly describe branding activities. This study contributes to the lack of empirically grounded knowledge of destination branding.

Drawing on the service-dominant logic and the institutional theory, this paper aims to explore the value-creating mechanisms of branding in the destination context and the brand co-creation process at and between different levels of a service ecosystem.

An exploratory research design was used to generate qualitative data from 18 in-depth interviews with important stakeholders and investigate how and why brand co-creation is fostered in the service ecosystem.

The study proposes a stepwise process of strategic imperatives for brand co-creation in the destination context. It presents the multi-directional flows of the brand meaning across levels of the tourism ecosystem and thereby interprets stakeholders’ efforts to co-create sustainable brands that gain prominence in the global tourism arena.

Future research might validate the framework in a quantitative research setting. The extended analysis of the value-creating ecosystem could investigate the role of institutions and brand value propositions across levels.

Acknowledging their limited control over the brand co-creation process, tourism practitioners are offered step-by-step guidance to help shape a destination brand that may retain relevance in the tourists’ minds. Critical insights are provided into resource sharing between actors and subsequent responsibilities for a sustainable destination branding strategy.

The paper considers the significance of the various levels in the ecosystem and the underlying mechanisms of brand co-creation in a somewhat neglected branding domain.

This chapter explores the concept of branding in a contemporary competitive arena of places. The multi-dimensional interpretations of places offer a variety of possibilities to better understand the true essence of destination branding. One of the common interpretations of places is through the study of their images, as destination branding requires a thorough understanding of destination image. The important foundation and relation of destination image are specified and explained. The notion of destination branding has evolved from the fields of marketing and urban studies and has become a cross-disciplinary research area. Thus, the researchers explain that destination branding as well as ‘place branding’ are dynamic concepts that are being continuously being explored in academia for the benefit of practitioners in travel and tourism. This chapter suggests that the use of brand equity is also one of the frontier areas of study in ‘place branding’ as it emphasises the need to thematise destinations (e.g. for their historical heritage, cultural value, natural attractions, etc.) and places for residence (e.g. as green cities, creative cities, smart cities, etc.).

Academic inquiries have predominantly treated destination branding as a marketing phenomenon that happens to involve tourists as customers in a marketplace. The practice of it has been entrenched in deploying tactical marketing tools such as attention-grabbing slogans. This opening chapter provides a critical review of destination and place branding literature, as well as a synopsis of each of the 15 chapters assembled in this state-of-the-art collection. Considering tourism branding as a community affair, this volume is distinguished from previous publications by adopting a global and more multidisciplinary approach and by placing the subject of tourism branding outside of the conventional domains of marketing and destination. By having the host community at the central stage, many chapters explicitly consider different stakeholders in the process of branding. Built on theoretical foundations with both empirical findings and practical cases, this book brings together different perspectives and offers an intellectual and open dialogue among academics and practitioners of the field.

This introduction seeks to provide a broad review of scholarly developments in the nascent field of destination branding spanning almost 12 years in order to locate the relevance and import of the following nine papers compiled for this special issue on destination branding and marketing.

A general review of literature is undertaken guided by an epistemological approach to knowledge thus far generated by the destination branding field, consistent with the recommendation of Tribe, and in lieu of the common reductionist approach to identifying themes. The background generated by the review is then used to introduce and assess the significance of the articles contained in this special issue.

Three undercurrents of critical issues implicated with the massive body of knowledge generated by the first decade of destination branding research are described and posited relations between them are tentatively advanced. The undercurrents pertain primarily to matters of identity affirmation, inter‐organizational assimilation and an unfolding anarchic environment for destination branding research and practice. The papers in this special issue exhibit profound connections with the different undercurrents.

Rather than summarize and classify achievements in destination branding research over the last decade or so, this editorial argues that current and future research contends with larger issues surrounding the field's core concern of destination branding and marketing.

This paper aims to review the dramatic growth in the number of meetings and published materials exploring destination branding and marketing over the past 15 years. It points out several notable thematic sub-branching in the field and prospective directions based on observable changes in the content and structure of this now-established discipline.

The review draws broad patterns and trends from the SCOPUS database and from Google’s Ngram metadata as well as a structural analysis of subject keywords.

Destination branding appears to be now as, if not more, relevant than general tourism or destination marketing. It is not just growing as a field of study but devolving, on the one hand, into several sub-branches but, on the other hand, also expanding more holistically to incorporate higher-level concepts of social identity, community and sustainability.

The paper provides a broad overview of thematic development and changes in the content and structure of destination branding and marketing at the metadata level.

This paper aims to analyze the case of Cartagena, Colombia, as a case of a failed destination branding. It also broadens the findings by connecting them to the extant literature about place branding, thus making this paper more explanatory. It tries to fit the fieldwork’s findings into the two main streams of branding research (bottom-up vs top-down). This paper also gives practical insights into the destination’s network of stakeholders and discusses ways to improve the destination’s management and branding.

This paper uses a mixed methodology approach. Field work consisted of online questionnaire to hospitality employees in the city plus semi-structured interviews conducted with 18 “expert” stakeholders in the destination. This paper is of empirical nature.

The main cause of the destination’s brand failure is found to be the top-down approach to the place brand strategy. The literature shows that cases such as this one are more common than assumed, and a possible way out of the problem is the application of bottom-up or “mixed” approaches, as these may circumvent the problems found.

Cases like this one illustrate very well a local context but might be difficult to transfer to other contexts, so the generalization power of this paper is limited to similar places in the sociopolitical sense of the term.

For place branding practitioners and destination management organizations , this paper is a call for participative approaches which include all of the stakeholders of a place.

This paper offers an in-depth study of a branding case in Latin America, a part of the world relatively unexplored in the branding literature. On the basis of the presented case, this paper pitches top-down versus bottom-up approaches. Finally, it explains the findings by connecting the place to its broad geographical context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of creativity and innovation as important attributes of smartness in cities/destination branding.

A conceptual support to the notion of smart destination branding is provided by discussing the relationship between creativity, innovation and technology as determinants for the smartness concept applied to destination branding and marketing. This paper adopts a qualitative and logical-deductive approach. The cases of Milan (Italy) and Tomsk (Russia) are presented and compared as smart cities approach to branding within and outside Europe. The authors emphasise the importance of smart destination branding strategies based on people participation, creativity and innovation as drivers of smart urban development.

The endogenous ability of cities/destinations to embrace creativity across stakeholders is essential to smart branding strategies relying on advanced information and communication technologies. The entwined connection between smart cities/destinations creative initiatives and innovation underpins innovative branding strategies.

The paper is conceptual and the findings cannot be generalised to other destinations, even if a couple of examples are briefly discussed. The authors intend to provide a basis for future research concerning smart destination branding.

The technological, human and institutional dimensions of smart cities and smart tourism destinations have been increasingly addressed by scholars and practitioners. Despite the reference and attention to human factors is not new, there is still a lack of extensive focus on creativity as crucial driver of innovation in smart destination branding. This paper aims to fill such gap by focussing on the implications of urban smartness driven by creativity and innovation in destination branding and marketing.

This paper explores the potential influence and consequences of corpora te branding on mountain resort destinations. It examines the extent to which corporations emphasize “placefulness” in the branding of their tourism products and services, as well as the degree to which they intentionally match their brands with values held by other destination stakeholders. “Placefulness” refers to the relative extent to which corporate branding strategies reinforce a destination's “sense of place” The findings suggest that a corporate as opposed to a community approach to branding is emerging in many tourism destinations. This has resulted in some significant redefinition of destination identities to reflect the changing needs of markets and corporations. Probably the most apparent identity shift in mountain communities brought on by corporate influence has involved the repositioning of many areas from being ski resorts to becoming four season destination resorts.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model for destination identity and value system. It aims to use a case study to illustrate a destination brand identity development process in a national tourism office (NTO).

The single case study method is used. The data consist of theme‐based interviews of eight different level managers of a NTO. Theoretical discussion is based on destination branding and emerging identity‐based branding literature.

This study proposes a model of destination brand identity and value system that takes a holistic view to the destination branding. It illustrates concepts of brand identity, brand image, brand value and brand equity in the same figure, incorporating different level actors to the value creation process. The case study illustrates the value creation process in the initial stage of the identity‐based branding.

The study is explorative and is based on an illustrative single country case study. The study uses emerging identity‐based branding approach and encourages more empirical research to be conducted in the area.

Practitioners may use the idea of taking a holistic view to destination branding, examining the destination from both the supply and demand side, acknowledging also other stakeholders' than customers' perspectives, especially when creating the destination brand identity.

The proposed model of destination identity and value system model adds to rare identity‐based destination branding literature incorporating different aspects of value to the same model with different level identities.