City marketing and planning in two Greek cities: plurality or constraints?

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to examine the relation between city/urban planning and city marketing / branding procedures through the analysis of Strategic Place Marketing implementation in two Greek cities, Larissa and Kozani. The common objective of both cases was to design and test a methodology based on participatory processes in order to plan actions that will lead to the most effective city marketing strategy for each city. The main challenge was to find a way to propose specific steps regarding the implementation of marketing plans acceptable to local stakeholders. The methodology eventually led to a consensus at local level, highlighting certain strengths and weaknesses of the cities and revealing their uniqueness. Since city marketing is connected with specific assets, urban planning and governance issues are strongly linked with its implementation. Through testing hypotheses such as planning / branding as the core of urban strategies, or the conditions under which marketing / branding can be an effective part of a wider urban development strategy, the aim is to establish whether the connections lean towards plurality or constraints.

KEYWORDS:

• City / place marketing plans
• urban planning
• participatory processes
• Kozani
• Larissa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The Research Group of the Laboratory of Tourism Planning, Research and Policy (LA.RE.TOUR), University of Thessaly, Department of Planning and Regional Development, Volos, Greece. The main research team consisted of Alex Deffner (Scientific Responsible), Theodore Metaxas, Nicholas Karachalis, Eva Psatha, Kleanthis Sirakoulis, Nicholos Bogiazides, Sotiria Katsafadou, Georgia Lalou, Neoklis Mantas.

2 The importance of this method is crucial, since it provides a clear view of an analysis of the participated actors, a cause-effect analysis, the identification and ranking of objectives, and the creation of the Project Planning Matrix, regarding the attribute of SCMP as a ‘project’.

3 Personal communication with the Vice Mayor of Larissa Mr. George Soultis (17th April 2019).