As visitor levies become a reality across the United Kingdom and Ireland, the focus has shifted from whether they should exist to how they are designed, governed, and spent. TOPOSOPHY's Barry Rogers explores how tourism taxes can serve as a vital strategic tool for place branding and destination management.

The truth is, not every place is ready for a place brand. Since residents often feel frustrated when money is spent on something that doesn't stick, you need to make sure you're ready for the long-term commitment required to deliver impactful place branding.

Measuring the impact of place branding or place marketing requires a nuanced approach. We reached out to our Expert partners to discover what you should be considering in order to measure the true value that you add to your place.

A successful place branding strategy is by its nature a long-term strategy, and those who don’t understand that will often be looking for shorter-term wins. So what does best practice look like when it comes to educating your stakeholders and giving a realistic overview of your impact? We reached out to the City Nation Place Expert partners to get their insight on what you should be focusing on.

How do you prove the efficacy of your place brand and marketing strategy? City Nation Place has carried out a research study to help place brand and marketing teams benchmark how they are measuring and demonstrating the impact of their work.

The de Bois report set out 12 recommendations to improve the DMO landscape in England – and the UK government has recently published their response, accepting the majority of Nick de Bois’ recommendations. Ahead of City Nation Place UK, we reached out to Patricia Yates, CEO of VisitBritain/VisitEngland, to understand what the broader impact will be across England following these decisions.

What can we learn from New York City, the cultural melting pot of the world? Nancy Mammana, Chief Marketing Officer for NYC & Company joined us to share how they’re giving a platform to marginalised voices and ensuring that the recovery is equitable.

We talked last week about the importance of having reputational resilience as a place brand or marketing organisation, but of course, this is only one facet of the solution. You have to be able to secure the future of your own organisation to be able to continue delivering on your place brand and place marketing success.

Whilst the impact of the pandemic is ongoing, the 2021 Survey has been able to look back on the past year and forward to the next, to explore the longer-term changes this is bringing to the practice of place branding and marketing for cities, regions, and nations around the world. There are a few key issues that places were grappling with that we’d like to highlight and explore…

As the discussions began on how to ‘build back better,’ a key question remains on how a regenerative future can be funded. Could well-designed tourism taxes be part of the answer?

We’re facing one of the greatest global health challenges of the last one hundred years – but how can we promote social and mental wellbeing during a year of uncertainty? We spoke to Dana Young, CEO and President at Visit Florida, to understand how lessons learned from their continued fight for survival allowed the organisation not only to thrive during the pandemic, but to support the wellbeing of their employees throughout the stress of the last six months.

If you’re reliant on government funding, getting your local politicians on board with your strategies is essential. As places re-evaluate their budgets following the pandemic, how can you ensure that you’re speaking your government’s language?