Emotional dimension in city’s image formation

The main point of the master’s thesis is to analyze emotional dimension in city’s image formation. City marketing is defined as the designing of a city to satisfy the needs of its target markets. It succeeds when citizens and businesses are pleased with their community and the expectations of visitors and investors are met. Indeed, city marketing as such is not a new phenomenon. However, as a result of the global transformations that are deeply impacting organizations at the local level, cities have been compelled to actively compete with each other. Now more than ever, cities need to attract tourists, factories, companies, and talented people, as well as find markets for their exports. This requires that cities adopt strategic marketing management tools, conscious city branding and create positive city’s image. City’s image have emotional and cognitive value to users. Emotions are getting more and more important in today’s world, because of the growing hedonistic usage, when goods and facilities are used for pleasure and emotional appeal. When consumers make choices about products, including destinations, they are making lifestyle statements since they are buying into an emotional relationship. The battle for consumers in tomorrow’s destination marketplaces will be fought not over price but over hearts and minds, and this is how places have moved into territories previously reserved for consumer brands (Grundey, 2009)