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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.).

A review of the marketing and tourism literatures revealed that brand ­reputation is a powerful tool that affects not only the image of the product or destination, but also purchase/visit decisions. The cost of failure in building a product image is high, but not as fatal as in the case of a destination. Moreover, destination branding is considered as a tool of competitive advantage, on the principles of value-added effect and equity criteria. Destination is an amalgam of geographic, economic, demographic, climatic, technological, environmental, political, and demographic factors which influence the competitive advantage, if built effectively.

Anholt (2007) finds evidence of a correlation between the positive experience of visiting a country and positive feeling about its products, its government, its culture, and its people. Deeper understanding of place brands in tourism destinations and reputation might be helpful for improving competitiveness.

One example of implementing a measurement of a country’s performance and reputation is the Anholt-GMI Brand Index, which evaluates the perception of countries as brands and measures the power and appeal of a nation’s brand image. This approach can be helpful to understand behavior and decisions of visitors to the destinations and to improve their competitiveness. The purpose of the chapter will be to explain how brand reputation influences consumers’ behavior.

Many destination marketers organise events to draw economic benefits over the short and long term. However, this chapter suggests that events can result in more than economic benefits, as they can be used to improve a destination’s branding and image. The authors explain how the organisation and implementation of successful events can enhance the destination’s attributes. They explore the consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) of the event and examine its relationship with other variables, including the destination’s image. Moreover, they maintain that music festivals can enhance the destination’s image and branding, particularly, when the visitors share their positive experiences with others. The authors make reference to two Portuguese events: NOS Primavera Sound event and NOS ALIVE. In conclusion, they imply that such music events are improving the brand equity among customers and adding value to the destination marketing of Portugal.

Competitiveness and contemporary changes in our society and modern technologies force countries to apply the innovative processes in their managerial and marketing activities. Cities as the places of life of human beings and their coexistence with modern technologies could benefit from the implementation of place marketing and branding strategies and from the accepting of new approach to their consumers, predominantly citizens, but also local and international businesses and visitors. This process should be governed by the active and effective co-operation of public authorities, which means a symbiosis of multilateral parties aiming at one goal – a successful and satisfied city users and a destination with modern and effective leadership. For this reason, not only a concept of the effective co-operation is crucial, but also a concept of modern technologies application, for instance a model of smart city or the co-creation principles applied in the fulfilment of service provision to citizens. In order to succeed in competitiveness, it is important to support in destinations the application of the innovative development and sound managerial strategies. This chapter explored a strategy applied in city marketing of one city in Slovakia, Banska Bystrica. The methods of comparison and benchmarking to propose the innovative approach to marketing have been applied. In primary and secondary researches, mixed methods have been used, a combination of quantitative methods (demand side perspective) and the application of the importance–performance analysis and qualitative methods (interviews with the representatives of municipalities, private sector and non-governmental sector representatives, e.g., supply side perspective).

This chapter considers the ways in which city images “travel” and are consumed at a distance. A significant body of existing research has examined UMPs in terms of attempts to produce particular images of cities for global circulation. Much less attention has been paid to assessing the “success” of imaging strategies – the means by (and extent to) which city images actually circulate and are consumed. Focusing on the travel of UMPs constructed in and around the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur (KL) in the 1990s, the chapter seeks to provide a corrective to the production-centeredness of existing scholarship. Extending fieldwork-based research carried out in Malaysia in the 1990s, the chapter focuses on a series of accidental “encounters” with KL's UMPs outside Malaysia. Part of the aim of the chapter is precisely to begin to think about how the “consumption” side of UMPs, and associated effects, could be examined in more systematic ways in the future. Extra-Malaysian encounters with KL-sited UMPs such as the Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC) project are examined in terms of a range of means through which city images circulate: in film and TV performances, as tourist souvenirs and planning models, in building height charts and commercial advertising, and even through academic practices. Most instances in which UMPs are “consumed” at a distance might be banal and seemingly unworthy of study but, collectively, they can serve to forge new imaginings which, in turn, can have profound material implications for the cities concerned.

In the Western thought tradition, the tourist has not been a subject worthy of intellectual musings and philosophical deliberations. Indeed, the tourist has been portrayed in primarily derisive ways. Nietzsche’s remark, “Tourists—they climb mountains like animals, stupid and perspiring, no one has told them that there are beautiful views on the way,” epitomizes the dominant attitude. Why does the figure of the tourist elicit such negative reactions? Do the sentiments perhaps imply something else, or is the tourist a doppelgänger, not anomalous or marginal but normative—a paradigmatic figure? If so, then what can be said of the poetics and politics of the tourist conceptualized as a paradigmatic subject?

Since the publication of the 1987 Brundtland Report, discussions about sustainable development have been nothing short of a buzz among politicians and academics. This chapter takes stock of an emerging strand of the sustainable city literature that recognizes local political dynamics, conflicts of interest, and power struggles.

The review is organized into three sections. The first section reviews how past studies have utilized sustainable urban development as an opportunity for advancing theories of urban politics, highlighting recent developments in the growth machine, regulatory state, and risk society theses. The second section examines a range of studies that place the questions of scale, unit, and boundary at the center of inquiry. The third section draws together a body of research that interrogates different meanings of sustainability.

The first section discusses the extent to which social and political processes in the sustainability age exhibit a pattern consistent with established theoretical accounts. The second section focuses on studies that address how urban sustainable development has brought challenges to existing configurations of spatial relations. These studies pose important methodological and epistemological questions for studying environmental politics. In the third section, the focus is placed on political implications of urban sustainable development, which is subject to multiple interpretations.

This chapter ends with a review of an emerging thesis – strategic urbanism, which draws attention to the patterns of change in urban politics. Much of the contributions to this thesis are based on urban sustainability politics in recent years.

The author describes how he entered the marketing field and describes his contributions in four sections: articles written, books published, students nurtured, and executives consulted and trained. He describes his contributions to the marketing field in nine areas: marketing theory and orientations, improving the role and practice of marketing, analytical marketing, the social and ethical side of marketing, globalization and international marketing competition, marketing in the new economy, creating and managing the product mix, strategic marketing, and broadening the concept and application of marketing.