Formation of the brand the city as an innovative way to improve its attractiveness for tourism

Now the image of Ukraine and its regions in the world is formed sporadically and chaotically. As a result, the attractiveness of individual cities and regions of Ukraine for tourists is very low. Increase in the level of global competition of regions and individual cities created the need for a positive image of a city on the tourist market. Promotion of local unique differences of such cities by building up a brand based on them is the most efficient tool to enhance tourism appeal of the region. Since building up brands for various objects and purposes has its specificity, with the growing importance of tourism for the regions of Ukraine we have to expand, explore the features of creation of a brand for individual cities to increase the attractiveness of the area for tourism. The goal of writing this article is to define the role of branding for tourist industry, to identify problems in this activity, to characterize the stages in a strategic approach to branding the cities to enhance their attractiveness for tourists. The study was performed by using the methods of scientific knowledge: analysis and synthesis, grouping, systematization, generalization. In the paper, a brand of a city is considered as a set of fixed values that reflect unique original consumer characteristics of this city and community, which are widely known, have gained public recognition and enjoy stable demand from consumers. The role of branding is highlighted in increasing the attractiveness of a city for tourism and it was established that branding is the most important factor of competitive advantage and the source of revenue to the city. It helps to the positioning of the region, to increase its competitiveness in different activities. Building up a brand of the territory is one of the ways to create the image and increase the level of awareness by the target groups, including tourists. In a certain context branding performs "educational" function. It will tell about unique city places and eventually form investment and tourist appeal. We analyzed branding activities in some cities. The main problems were detected in the activity at developing and promotion of brands to attract tourists. The stages of a strategic approach to building up efficient city brand were characterized: diagnosis of the situation and development of the objectives of branding; formulation of the essence of the brand; strategic plan of branding; implementation of the strategic plan, evaluation of the effectiveness of the created brand. The scientific novelty of this work consists in the development of the sequence of the phases of building up and implementation of the branding strategy of a city, which unlike other approaches to strategic branding takes into account the specifics of forming a city brand to enhance its attractiveness to tourists. The practical value of the work lies in the possibility of applying the proposed sequence of stages of development and implementation of the branding strategy by separate cities, territories in forming their own branding strategy, creation and promotion of the brand to attract tourists to the region. Further research might be conducted in the direction of the search for other ways of territorial development of the city, which will help attract tourists to the region