Please note: we are always striving to create the best agenda, and so this agenda will be subject to change.
If you have a story to share, or would like to propose a speaker, please contact Clare.
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09:00
Optional morning activities to add to your conference booking!
Places are limited on both options so please do register early.
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CNP Lab: Re-thinking place branding KPIs
[For places only, sorry but no consultants to allow for free discussion]
Join us for a workshop session to focus on how KPIs need to change to offer real value. We’ll be bringing together different conversations, sharing experiences, and developing action points to help you reshape the way you demonstrate your place brand team’s impact.
- How can you measure if your place brand is resonating – within your place and for external audiences?
- If AI is changing decision-making journeys for visitors, talent, and investors, what does this mean for the role of the place brand narrative, where it should be impacting the conversation and how you can demonstrate success?
Add to your conference booking for £155
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Place shaping tour: creating a stronger sense of community in a business district
[Optional for all delegates]
Details to be confirmed, but we plan to provide an opportunity to hear from a BID team who are creating a sense of community among workers and also developing a visitor economy approach by leveraging cultural investment.
Add to your conference booking for £55
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12:30
Conference registration for all delegates
Light lunch refreshments will be available
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13:15
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13:30
What the world thinks: a global tour of attitudes to nations, democracy, and the march of technology
Setting the scene for the conference focus on perceptions of place and strategic management of place reputation, hear what the Pew Research Center is learning about global attitudes, including…
- What makes people proud of the country they live in?
- How are geopolitics impacting on perspectives of different nations and geographies?
- What do people think about democratic values and place leadership?
- How do attitudes vary towards the growing impact of AI on the world that we live in?
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13:55
Building a place brand on an emotional foundation
It’s the chicken and egg question for place branding. What comes first – the strategy for the future of your place, or the understanding of what connects people to your place now?
- Why place brand custodians need to understand the emotion of place in order to build the narrative and shape intentional strategies
- In an age where the algorithms profit off negative emotions, owning the positive emotions and connections is key
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14:20
Panel discussion: strategies for tackling dis- and mis-information
Bad news travels fast, even when it’s not true. How can place branding and marketing teams stay ahead of the news cycle, counter the mis-perceptions, and ensure that the true place story wins through?
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15:00
Refreshments
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15:30
Ideas, solutions, and inspiring case studies: choose your expert partner-led session
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16:10
Round table discussions
Join a group of fellow delegates for peer-to-peer discussion of the topic most relevant to you.
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Media strategies to ensure discoverability
- How are places reviewing the balance of earned vs paid media?
- Which approaches are working best to earn media?
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Ensuring strong governance for your place brand
How are place brand teams developing effective structural approaches for embedding the holistic place narrative across tourism, investment promotion, trade, and all other key areas?
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How to be an AI-ready and operationalised organisation
- How are places taking control of the evolution of AI within their own team structures?
- What are places learning in terms of developing skills, implementing tools, and ensuring the right balance between AI and human ownership of the place brand?
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17:05
Closing keynote
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17:30
Close of day one, followed by our official Welcome Reception for all delegates, details to be announced.
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09:00
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09:10
Leveraging global events to shift perceptions of your city, nation or place on the world stage
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09:30
Building an international profile through city and region collaboration: Liverpool
How can a city and a region build a combined narrative to build global reputation?
- Defining joint objectives
- Building a place narrative that reflects both the city’s character and the diverse regional strengths
- Initiating the Global Liverpool Partnership to bring together stakeholders, create ambassadors, and support the strategy in practical ways
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09:50
Place to place collaboration: how to create a regional brand from strong city brands
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10:15
Refreshments
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10:45
Ideas, solutions, and inspiring case studies: choose your expert partner-led sessions
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12:40
Lunch
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13:45
Panel discussion: strategies for tracking place brand perception
In this discussion, we will focus beyond the rankings – which have a clear value and contribution to make but are not accessible to every nation, region, or city.
- Why is perception tracking important?
- How should it impact on strategy?
- What are we learning about the frequency, depth, and focus of brand tracking research?
- What are the pros and cons of AI-led tools for social listening and perception tracking?
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14:25
How the nation brand is driving international attention by empowering regional brands: Embratur and the development of the Amazonia place brand
- Why and how Brazil’s national tourism board has developed a strategic decentralisation strategy
- Balancing the nation brand with regional and destination brands
- Developing the Amazonia place brand – managing the challenge of working with 9 regions
- Ensuring the regions’ voices co-lead the creative and development process
- More than a tourism marketing brand – developing the identity as a product of origin brand
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14:45
How Thailand’s Creative Economy Agency is developing and activating city brands as creative assets for the nation
- Working with local creators, businesses and communities to map out and brand cities as distinct creative assets
- Building a narrative that drives local pride, attracts targeted investment, and stimulates more sustainable tourism
- Activating festivals as scalable economic infrastructure, and as catalysts to activate and revitalise neighbourhoods to deliver a more sustainable socioeconomic footprint
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15:05
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15:15
Refreshment
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15:45
Ensuring your place brand lives: strategies for moving to place brand as an operating system
Understanding what you need to have in place to ensure that your place brand becomes the real north star for policy, for collaboration, and for community.
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16:25
Closing keynote
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16:45
The City Nation Place Awards
Our celebration of the very best in place branding and place marketing – announcing the winners of this year’s Awards
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17:15
Close of conference, followed by farewell drinks
Confirm cancellation
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Clare is the Founder and Director of City Nation Place, the global forum for the people and stories behind places.
City Nation Place creates connections and shares best practice between country brands, regional brands, and city brands around the world through articles, interviews, surveys, benchmarking reports, awards, the advisory group network, and conferences.
Clare’s interest in the complex area of place branding was sparked whilst working on a series of Nation Branding Masterclass events, led by Simon Anholt, one of the first thought-leaders to speak about and promote the concept of place branding. Having listened to Simon address audiences in Accra, Delhi, Dubai, London and Singapore on how policy, governance, and symbolic actions need to combine with branding and marketing to create a competitive identity and drive economic growth, she continued to follow the growth in this sector.
Clare launched the first City Nation Place Global conference in London in 2015. CityNationPlace.com has been steadily building followers and in 2017, the first City Nation Place Americas conference was launched and 2019 saw the first City Nation Place UK, specifically for towns, cities and regions across the UK. In 2025, the first Australasia conference was held in Sydney, and one-off events have been held in Singapore and Costa Rica.
Richard Wike is Director of Global Attitudes Research at Pew Research Center in Washington, DC. He manages the Center’s international survey research and writes about public opinion around the world on a variety of topics, such as democracy, international cooperation, technology, and attitudes toward the United States and China.
He is an author of numerous Pew Research Center reports and has written for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Nikkei Asia, Politico, Journal of Democracy, Journal of Politics and other publications. Wike has been interviewed by a variety of U.S. and non-U.S. news organizations.
Prior to joining Pew Research, Wike was a Senior Associate for international and corporate clients at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. Wike got his start in public opinion research with Schapiro Research Group, an Atlanta-based polling firm. He received his PhD in Political Science from Emory University.
Todd Babiak is the co-founder of Story Engine, a consultancy based in Vancouver that uses narrative to solve business problems and build brands. In 2011, one of his clients, the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, changed his life because he fell in love with place-branding. Many clients later, his strategy work for Tasmania turned into a job, which led to another job, possibly the best job in the world: CEO of Brand Gold Coast.
Clare is the Founder and Director of City Nation Place, the global forum for the people and stories behind places.
City Nation Place creates connections and shares best practice between country brands, regional brands, and city brands around the world through articles, interviews, surveys, benchmarking reports, awards, the advisory group network, and conferences.
Clare’s interest in the complex area of place branding was sparked whilst working on a series of Nation Branding Masterclass events, led by Simon Anholt, one of the first thought-leaders to speak about and promote the concept of place branding. Having listened to Simon address audiences in Accra, Delhi, Dubai, London and Singapore on how policy, governance, and symbolic actions need to combine with branding and marketing to create a competitive identity and drive economic growth, she continued to follow the growth in this sector.
Clare launched the first City Nation Place Global conference in London in 2015. CityNationPlace.com has been steadily building followers and in 2017, the first City Nation Place Americas conference was launched and 2019 saw the first City Nation Place UK, specifically for towns, cities and regions across the UK. In 2025, the first Australasia conference was held in Sydney, and one-off events have been held in Singapore and Costa Rica.
As Embratur’s Business Development Manager for Europe, Lilas Nascimento drives strategic growth across 9 priority markets on the continent, specialising in unlocking high-value opportunities and connecting European business networks, investors, and partners to Brazil’s dynamic commercial and tourism ecosystem. Having successfully led Embratur’s UK office for 5 years, she has developed solid market intelligence and established deep ties with key British stakeholders. Today, Lilas bridges her local and continental expertise with the innovative national management team, celebrated for breaking the global growth record for international tourist arrivals in 2025. Operating under the strategic framework of the Plano Brasis (2025-2028), her work focuses on market expansion, multi-regional brand governance, and strategic decentralisation — offering practical benchmarks on how national organisations navigate global competitiveness, balance macro-destination brands with local micro-identities, and transform complex assets, such as the multi-state Amazon brand, into powerful, authentic travel products for discerning travellers.
As Embratur’s Business Development Manager for Europe, Lilas Nascimento drives strategic growth across 9 priority markets on the continent, specialising in unlocking high-value opportunities and connecting European business networks, investors, and partners to Brazil’s dynamic commercial and tourism ecosystem. Having successfully led Embratur’s UK office for 5 years, she has developed solid market intelligence and established deep ties with key British stakeholders. Today, Lilas bridges her local and continental expertise with the innovative national management team, celebrated for breaking the global growth record for international tourist arrivals in 2025. Operating under the strategic framework of the Plano Brasis (2025-2028), her work focuses on market expansion, multi-regional brand governance, and strategic decentralisation — offering practical benchmarks on how national organisations navigate global competitiveness, balance macro-destination brands with local micro-identities, and transform complex assets, such as the multi-state Amazon brand, into powerful, authentic travel products for discerning travellers.