From Insularity to Islandness: The use of place branding to achieve sustainable island tourism

Angeliki Mitropoulou, University of AegeanFollow
Ioannis Spilanis, University of AegeanFollow

Abstract

This paper aims to outline the role that place branding plays in shaping a new framework for sustainable island tourism. Islandness, as a contemporary context, underlines that islands share a set of unique features and they need to be studied on their own terms; they combine elements of urban and rural regions at the same time. Place branding is evolving as a crucial element for differentiated marketing that conditionally can also form an alternative tool to achieve sustainability for island regions. Therefore, policy makers need to examine tourism policies for island regions through the lenses of Nissology. It is commonly accepted that globalisation has intensified the competition between countries, cities and regions to attract investment, high quality human capital, various potential audiences and visitors. Several factors play a significant role in shaping the context in which places develop nowadays: climate change, new technologies, tourism pressures are just a few to highlight from the public discussion and academic debates. A growing number of researchers argue that place branding could be the strategic planning procedure needed, able to achieve multifaceted sustainability of an island destination. One very important issue raised often by both academics and practitioners is the role of stakeholders and local governance in such strategic processes like sustainable tourism development of a destination. The literature review, in this paper, explores why islandness and place branding have become significant for islands’ sustainable tourism development. Therefore, building on existing cross-discipline theoretical foundations, the present paper aims to (a) highlight the link between islandness and contemporary place branding, (b) emphasise the need to establish the term ‘island branding’, and (c) suggest a potential framework deriving from this linkage as a proper solution for contributing to the next era of sustainable tourism development for island regions.

Recommended Citation

Mitropoulou, Angeliki and Spilanis, Ioannis (2020) "From Insularity to Islandness: The use of place branding to achieve sustainable island tourism," International Journal of Islands Research: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 5.
doi:https://doi.org/10.21427/5rtc-9p69
Available at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijir/vol1/iss1/5