ABSTRACT
Today there is more imperative than ever for places to manage their reputations as they compete globally in attracting visitors, residents and businesses (Jaffe and Nebenzahl 2006; Yeoman 2008). Put simply, each time the name of a place is mentioned there is an opportunity to add or subtract value to its equity or its brand. And a place with a positive reputation fi nds it easier to vie for attention, resources, people, jobs and money; a positive place reputation builds place competitiveness and cements a place as somewhere worth visiting (Florida 2002, 2010; Malecki 2004, 2007; Jansson and Power 2006). Today the world has 265 countries and approximately 3,400 large cities – all of which are seeking to improve, reverse, adapt or in some way manage their international image. This means that more and more places looking to build or maintain strong reputations are considering a holistic approach to their brand strategy which incorporates tourism, economic development and a sense of place. A strong place brand is a powerful mediator of culture, communities and peoples and being a powerful and resilient brand is hugely important for any tourism destination in the fi ght to combat increasing product parity, substitutability and competition. All of which opens up controversial questions of place authenticity, narratives and authorship, performativity and story-telling as destinations are both geo-political systems – often with their own Destination Management Organization or DMO (Buhalis 2000) – and socio-culturally produced spaces, the result of constantly evolving discursive practices (Morgan 2004; Pike 2004; Saarinen 2004).
