significant number of places of different scale – from nations to towns and villages – have made more or less successful attempts to implement place marketing tools and programs. Some of them have had the form of coherent development programs and strategies. Others focused mainly on the “promotion” component of the marketing mix, narrowing marketing to communication techniques and place promotion.

Place marketing and place branding

Marketing is a widely implemented demand-based concept and practice aiming at meeting the needs and requirements of consumers as a basic principle of gaining market success for companies (Saren, 2009). Consumers are recognised as main actors, whereas companies are competing for their attention and positive attitude that, in essence, result in making a purchase. The marketing approach, though emerged initially in the production and industrial field, has been applied and spread dramatically to numerous spheres and areas, from marketing services to marketing personalities and celebrities (Kotler and Armstrong, 2016). Due to global processes in international economies, territorial competition between places has all over the world increased (Baker, 2012). It has resulted in searching for marketing instruments and solutions and influenced the development of place marketing and place branding techniques. A large number of regions implement place branding strategies in order to attract people or businesses to the place or to prevent migration out of regions (Mikulcak et al, 2015).
Today, literature links place marketing, place promotion and place branding (Boisen et al, 2018). In some research the definition and terms of place branding is studied with the emphasis on the capacity of the brand to be differentiated and creating and promoting an external image aimed at attracting tourists, investors and creative people (Kavaratzis, 2005). There is a discussion in literature about frameworks and interconnections of place marketing and place branding concepts. It is argued that place branding is a much broader as long-term strategy, while place marketing is only a part of it (Baker, 2012). Place marketing is usually seen as a demand-based approach to place development, while place branding is regarded to be identity-driven and reputation-focused, which makes it more advantageous and strategic compared to place marketing (Boisen et al, 2018).