Modeling a City’s Branding Tools: The Case of Istanbul

Abstract

Recently, studies on city branding extend across academicians and practitioners, and there is a considerable growing body of research and practice related to city branding. Probably, the most prevailing reason is that cities all over the world engage in marketing and branding eforts in order to stay competitive and relevant on the global market.Cities have to compete with others in all areas they can: city's tourism capacity, competitive advantage, quality of the place, history, lifestyle, and so on. The main purpose of this study is to present the conceptual and empirical framework of İstanbul's branding issue in terms of a tourism plan. Therefore, this study atempts to contribute researchers and project implementers by detailing branding tools of İstanbul. In order to determine branding tools, two groups of information were obtained: one is the data received through the meetings done with professionals, and the other is the data received through tourists and citizens. With this information, tourism-oriented branding tools for İstanbul are developed. The following are the basic branding strategies accepted for İstanbul: (1) tourism variability and geographic wideness, (2) originality and character, (3) interaction and communication, (4) global efect, (5) strong infrastructure and high quality of life, (6) the spirit of the city, and (7) the symbol atributed to the city.