Travel Writing in Place Branding - A Case Study on Nantes

Abstract

One of the main channels to communicate city branding, designed to attract British tourists for short breaks, is the travel section of the UK national press. With many newspapers now online for readers to browse, city branders have an accessible source of data to evaluate how their offer is presented. In this research, a collection of travel articles is analysed into themes for comparison with the elements used in place branding. The analysis discovers that 3 key elements used by commercial and academic place branders are not covered by contributors to the travel sections of the UK national press. The study is extended to explore how practices from academic research can be used in place-making to address these gaps.