We caught up with Leah Chandler, the Chief Marketing Officer at Discover Puerto Rico, and Nate Huff, Senior Vice President of Miles Partnership, in order to discover their takes on the key challenges facing place branding in the Latin American region.

We caught up with Daniela Montiel, International Partnerships Manager at Marca Chile, and one of our esteemed jurors for the City Nation Place Awards, to uncover her take on some of the key challenges facing place branding at the moment and what she will be looking for in an award-winning entry.

We asked Glenn Jones, Chief Experience Development Officer, Bermuda Tourism Authority, to share their take on the key trends affecting place branding.

We caught up with Catherine Callary, Vice President - Destination Development at Ottawa Tourism, ahead of the City Nation Place Americas conference this week in order to discover her take on place making, collaboration, and the role of a destination marketing organisation.

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.

We were fortunate enough to be able to discuss some of the key challenges facing Los Angeles with Ernest Wooden Jr, President & CEO at Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Bureau, and our closing keynote. LA is now planning for the Olympics in 2028, and Ernest will be joining us to explore how they are developing a strategic plan to engage citizens, develop infrastructure to support sustainable development in tourism and its economy and secure collaboration between the key stakeholders to build a unified vision for the future of LA.

At City Nation Place, we were able to talk to both Tony Attard, Chairman at Panaz Limited and Rachel McQueen, Chief Executive, Marketing Lancashire to share their views on brand vision, tourism and engagement within the UK.

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.

We asked Victor Hoskins, Director at Arlington Economic Development, to share his thoughts on some of the key trends affecting place branding in the USA and Canada, such as pro-active advocacy, positive citizen engagement and the challenge of reacting to negative publicity and policy.