THE ROLE OF MARKETING IN THE PROMOTION OF ISTANBUL BRAND
İSTANBUL MARKASININ TUTUNDURULMASINDA PAZARLAMA KARMASININ ROLÜ

Author : İpek KROM
Number of pages : 159-172

Abstract

In our globalizing world increased competition between cities have resulted in expanding investments in marketing activities. In order to promote tourism and reinvestments, the cities have been using marketing activities to create more attractive sites and make use of their resources more efficiently. In becoming a branded city, marketing activities play a major role in building brand value, which in turn results in the attraction of newcomers, revisits, settlements, reinvestments and the development of the city. This paper focuses on the Istanbul brand, which carries an important role in the promotion of Turkey as being its cultural, economic and financial center. As one of the most historical and appealing metropolitans in the world with remains of ancient civilizations, Istanbul has been chosen as the "European Culture Capital" in the year 2010 by the European Union Council. Furthermore, in the year 2015, Istanbul has been named as "Europe's Best Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) Destination" (ICVB, 2016). Istanbul has attracted 12 million 414 thousand 677 tourists in 2015 (Turizm Aktuel, 2016) rising on a 4.8 percent rate compared to 2014. Increasing number of marketing activities developed by numerous actors of private and public sector are among the reasons why tourists prefer Istanbul. In addition to these, we can list the increasing number of hotels, developed infrastructure and better transportation, modern shopping malls, international festivals, exportation of Turkish TV series, gastronomy investments, congress tourism, health tourism, student exchange programs, expatriation opportunities, recreational activities and new tourism destinations. In this paper we explore the marketing activities in Istanbul in order to make the city of the most visited metropolitans in the world. Decision making people, professionals in the tourism sector and academicians in the tourism department have been interviewed using in-depth interview method to provide better insight to the addressed topics.

Keywords

City Branding, Istanbul, Marketing, Tourism, Tourism Marketing

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