Tracing the Origins of Place Branding Research: A Bibliometric Study of Concepts in Use (1980–2018)

Wenting Ma, Daan Schraven, Mark de Bruijne, Martin de Jong and Haiyan Lu
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Wenting Ma: Department of Multi-Actor Systems, Faculty of Technology, Policy & Management, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands
Daan Schraven: Section of Infrastructure Design & Management, Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Stevinweg 1, 2628 CN Delft, The Netherlands
Mark de Bruijne: Department of Multi-Actor Systems, Faculty of Technology, Policy & Management, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands
Martin de Jong: Rotterdam School of Management & Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Haiyan Lu: Department of History and Cultural Studies, Free University of Berlin, Berlin 14195, Germany

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-20

Abstract: Place branding is seriously studied in various academic disciplines. Its impact on strategic development plays a vital role in processes of sustainable urban transformation. Place branding originated in tourism management and over time its research focus spilled over and evolved in environmental science, urban studies and public administration. Scholars and policy makers are currently faced with a myriad of concepts in place branding research, which show considerable overlap but should be carefully distinguished from each other. To increase our understanding of this body of research, this article observes a strong pattern of the concepts in use, in their references to location types (i.e., urban, city, destination, place) and broadcasting activities (branding, marketing, promotion). It builds on this observation by collecting studies from the Scopus database by location type and broadcasting activities (LT–BA) reference pairs and systematically analysing and reviewing these from 1980 to 2018. A total of 2665 articles and reviews were identified and analysed based on (1) occurrences per reference pair, (2) co-occurrences per reference pair, and (3) co-occurrences for each reference pair with other concepts. On that basis, the origin and evolution of the research field including multiple reference pairs in use is explored and described.

Keywords: place branding; place marketing; place promotion; conceptual development; bibliometric analysis; Scopus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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