Neighbourhoods – place branding’s greatest asset?
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.
The image of cities has gone from being about the skyline or the products or the industries of these cities, to being about this human scale experience.
Ethan Kent, Senior Vice President, Project of Public Spaces
New York and Amsterdam achieved success with their “redistribution” strategies by focusing on the “authentic” experiences to be had in the places-less-visited. This appealed most to millennial travellers who have led the way in rejecting the label ‘tourist’ and seeking out genuine local experience. Travel writers are responding – type “coolest neighbourhoods” into Google and you will come across a plethora of coolest neighbourhood guides, from Time Out, to Lonely Planet, Forbes to USA Today. In September 2018, the UK’s conservative daily, The Daily Mail, was astonished to report that Time Out had judged Peckham in South London to be 11th on its list – alongside places like Embajadores in Madrid and Fitzroy in Melbourne. As Ethan Kent, Senior Vice President for the Project of Public Spaces said at City Nation Place Americas 2018, “the image of cities has gone from being about the skyline or the products or the industries of these cities, to being about this human scale experience”. Many DMOs have grasped this new marketing angle – from Cape Town’s Insider Series campaign in 2017 which featured different neighbourhoods and local experiences, to Tourism Vancouver’s website guide to its neighbourhoods.
It's great to see that you're enjoying our content.
You've already read one article this month. Please sign in or create an account to continue reading - it's completely free and will only take a minute!
Thank you for using City Nation Place!
To access please sign in
