Trust is the bedrock of successful place branding. We sat down with New Orleans & Co’s Walt Leger III to explore how investing in stakeholder alignment activities has underpinned both their recent UNESCO City of Music designation as well as their crisis management and communication strategies.

When is civic infrastructure actually a placemaking masterpiece? Nigel Bickle, CEO of Hastings District Council, outlined water contamination led to the creation of a water treatment plant that functions as a core pillar of community life. 

The competitive advantage of the future will not belong to those who predict what will happen, but to those who adapt most quickly to what no one predicted. N/LF's Caio Esteves explores how place leaders can adopt a new mindset to deal with contemporary challenges. 

We talk about the importance of building your place brand in partnership with your community and your stakeholders, but what happens when someone disagrees with your direction? Here are twelve pieces of advice to help you respond effectively.

Maria Lypiatska, Head of Brand Ukraine, explores how and why their nation brand strategy is vital to their national security, the importance of building trust in the face of disinformation, and how communications translate into collective action

Political instability isn't just a distant issue anymore; it's a critical player in whether we click 'book' or 'cancel'. TOPOSOPHY’s Barry Rogers dives into the findings from their latest white paper to answer the question about how politics impacts tourism, and what destination marketing organisations should be doing.

Climate risk affects all areas of the tourism industry. The Travel Foundation's Ben Lynam outlines how destinations can make sure they're prepared for extreme weather events and how to develop a more sustainable tourism model. 

We are facing a transformational and decidedly disruptive shift in the geopolitical landscape - but what does that mean for tourism? FINN Partners' Jessica Berk Ross dives into the biggest trends shaping the future of travel.

We’re living in paradoxical times – but how should place brand and marketing teams be preparing to respond? We reached out to our Expert partners to discover what geopolitical, social, or economic trends they predicted would have the greatest impact on nation, region, and city brand strategies to help you prepare for the year ahead.

Christian Biller, Brand Strategist for the Swedish Institute and industry veteran, joined us to talk about how approaches to nation branding have evolved over the past decade, what skills place leaders need to succeed in the face of disinformation, and how you can future-proof your strategy.

The pandemic has sparked an entirely new vocabulary. And now the word “resilience” has continued to rise up the ranks to take centre stage. But what is resilience? What do we mean by it in relation to city or nation branding?

One year after the invasion began, Brand Ukraine launched a new campaign - #WhatWeAreFightingFor – which gave Ukrainian citizens the opportunity to share the reasons they kept fighting for their homeland. We reached out to Maria Lypiatska, Head of Brand Ukraine, to discover how the team are leveraging strong, authentic communication in the face of adversity, and how they’re giving a voice to more than 40 million Ukrainians.

In the face of a complex, dynamic issues environment, what are the points of influence and the methods for controlling your place narrative? How can nation brand teams proactively identify emerging risks to their reputation and take preventative action?

#WhatWeAreFightingFor showed the world over 600,000 reasons to fight, presenting each region of Ukraine to the world and explaining why each square kilometre of their land is essential.

Learn about Ukraine's Award entry for Best Communication Strategy: Place Brand

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moldova saw thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing across their border. As a former Soviet republic, the country was facing a communication crisis. Invest Moldova's Irina Tolstousov explains how they launched the 'Moldova for Peace' campaign and what this means for their citizen engagement and soft power one year on.