With just two weeks until our inaugural City Nation Place Latin America & Caribbean conference and with a line-up of place branding leaders set to share their expertise, we’ve gathered eight of the best quotes to give you a quick sneak preview of the ground-breaking discussion planned for Costa Rica. Of course, many of the issues they raise will be relevant around the world….

At first, Latin America seems enticing with its sunny weather, low cost of living, beautiful beaches, and incredible history. And without surprise, these features are frequently promoted in international travel and lifestyle media. 

But are these reasons enough to get a traveler or business motivated to seek out Latin America as their next destination?  Are the rich Latin culture, weather, and affordable cost what it takes to make its vibrant cities a top destination to work, live, and do business in?

June 6th saw nearly 200 dedicated place branders arriving in West Hollywood for the third annual City Nation Place Americas conference. As always, the debates were honest, the conversations cutting-edge, and it was an insightful and inspiring experience to exchange ideas with the top minds in destination marketing and economic development. However, in a day packed with perceptive commentary, there were five key ideas that particularly stood out to us.

We’ve been lucky enough to secure some of the most innovative, creative and strategic minds in place branding and economic development for the third annual City Nation Place Americas conference, and with just one week to go until the conference, we wanted to share some of our speakers’ best quotes to help inspire your own place brand vision.

At City Nation Place, we talk about creating and implementing nation branding strategies that engage all stakeholders. The Brand Summit South Africa is a working example of an initiative to bring together all the key voices of a nation to focus on how to develop and promote the brand to the world. Ahead of the second Summit, taking place on 6 & 7 June in Johannesburg, we caught up with Solly Moeng, the convenor of the Summit, to find out more.

Is the USA ahead of the UK when it comes to integrating destination marketing and economic development, and securing funding? Politicians and the private sector can be more supportive of economic development over tourism with funding – integrating tourism and economic strategies more effectively can secure longer-term financial security. John Lambeth, CEO and Founder of Civitas, shared his insight into the challenges DMOs face to secure funding and how collaboration is the key to long-term success.

A year ago, a report by the Center for an Urban Future highlighted a record increase in tourism to New York City over the past two decades and outlined the economic benefits that this had delivered for thousands of Brooklyn residents.  Brooklyn has no doubt benefitted from NYC & Co’s strategy of promoting the outer boroughs and lesser-known neighbourhoods.  Fred Dixon, CEO of NYC & Co discussed this at the first City Nation Place Americas conference in 2017, which also included a presentation from Franz van der Avert, head of Amsterdam Marketing, outlining a similar policy of sharing the load of over-tourism to create a broader distribution of economic benefits by encouraging visitors to explore further afield than the centre of the City – taking in neighbourhoods that, technically, were even outside the city.

We were lucky enough to be able to catch up with Kian Kamas, Chief of Economic Development at the Mayor's Office in the City of Tulsa to discuss her views on the latest trends impacting on the landscape of economic development in Canada and the USA.