IPBA2024 - Bangkok

The conference aims to bring together scholars, practitioners and students of place branding and related fields (nation branding, public diplomacy, city branding, country branding, destination branding). It is the main vehicle to advance the aims of the International Place Branding Association, which include providing a forum for the exchange of ideas around the theory and practice of place branding, linking the members of the international place branding community in a beneficial manner, bringing scholars and practitioners closer together and advancing the professionalisation of the field.

 

The conference gathers place branding experts from academia, practice and policy making for valuable discussions around this fascinating cutting-edge intersection of marketing, tourism, economic development, events organisation, heritage management, spatial design, public diplomacy and human geography. Special opportunities for networking will be offered.

 

Building on the momentum of the 2023 IPBA conference, the 2024 IPBA conference, to be held in Bangkok, endeavours to shed light on the potential of place branding as a force for good amidst a rapidly evolving global landscape. The conference seeks to further the discourse on how place branding, an inherently interdisciplinary domain, can serve as a catalyst for positive change and development across diverse sectors and communities. We warmly invite contributions from scholars, practitioners, and thinkers from a variety of fields including but not limited to marketing, business, tourism, architecture, urban design, geography, political science, public administration, and communications. Through an engaging amalgam of perspectives, we aim to foster a richer understanding and a more robust theoretical framework surrounding place branding.

 

The conference welcomes a breadth of topics and particularly encourages submissions that:

• Advance the theoretical understanding of place branding.

• Explore the symbiotic relationship between place branding and other disciplinary realms, enriching the theoretical and practical understanding of place branding.

• Use multiple, comparative case studies that reflect on cross-case conclusions.

• Develop an agenda for engaged scholarship in place branding.

• Focus on the intersection between crisis communication and place branding.

• Examine the overlaps between place branding and public diplomacy.

• Advance the clarification of major concepts (e.g., place marketing vs. place branding vs. place promotion vs. diplomacy).

• Explore and analyse the differences between major application fields (e.g., tourism vs. resident attachment vs. investment attraction) and/or major place scales (cities vs. regions vs. nations).

• Critically examine the use and potential of digital technologies and social and mainstream media in place branding.

• Examine the role of creativity and innovation in place branding strategies.

• Analyse the significance of stakeholder engagement for effective place branding and methods to facilitate it.

• Branding and marketing local food and culture; geographical indications; gastronomy in destination branding; culinary and cultural diplomacy.

• Country of origin effects; soft power; branding for talent attraction and investment promotion.

• Soft power and place branding.

• Destination management organisations and place branding: roles, strategies, and practices.

• Place branding and cross border areas.

• Place branding and sustainable development.

• Place branding and the arts: discussing creativity and converging artistic and social vision(s) by listening to the plurality of voices.

• Practitioners’ learnings (from policy makers or consultants) based on cases or applied research.

 

We also invite doctoral candidates to submit presentations to the doctoral colloquium; and scholars, researchers, practitioners, students and artists to submit Place Branding-inspired artistic work for presentation at a special session called the ‘IPBA Art Gallery’.