IPBA Place Branding.
IPBA Place Branding – 3rd edition
Duration: 12 working weeks (September 2023, week 37 – December 2023, week 51, including 2 breaks)
Format: online
Language: English
Number of hours: 36 hours + 30 hours of self-study
Head tutors: Magdalena Florek, Mihalis Kavaratzis
Guest speakers: Martin Boisen, Hong Fan, Robert Govers, Nigel Morgan, Marta Hereźniak, Jens Thraenhart, Chung, C.M.M. (Choi Mi), Martin McElligott, Melanie de Vocht, TBA
Certificate of completion: yes
Price: 2699 EUR
Registration deadline: July 30, 2023
Max No. of participants: 12
Assignment: written report
In order to receive more details, please click on the “request details” button below.
See also: Frequently Asked Questions
This course is meant to provide an overview of place branding and practical guidance on implementing the place branding process. It is, therefore, suitable for anyone interested in this fascinating field, whether you represent a City Hall, a Local or Regional Authority, a Tourism Office or DMO, a private company or public body, a consultancy agency or if you are simply interested in place branding for your personal and professional development.
In this 12-working-week course you will gain a comprehensive understanding of place brands, you will learn how to implement the principles of strategic place branding and you will train in the main methods and tools of place branding application.
You will have the chance to interact with some of the world’s best-known experts on place branding. The course tutors are world-leading authors, consultants and practitioners in the field. You will also have guest lectures from the managers of some of the world’s best place brands.
At the end of the instructional component of the course, you will have to prepare an assignment (written report). You will get clear guidelines and supportive materials to help you with your assignment. Your submission will be marked by the main tutors and you will get constructive feedback on your work.
Mihalis Kavaratzis
IPBA Board Member
is Professor of Place Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He holds a PhD on city marketing from the University of Groningen, Netherlands and has taught marketing and tourism related courses in Budapest, Hungary and Leicester. His research focuses on the theory and application of place marketing and place branding. His interests include tourism destination marketing and the study of destination images. Mihalis is also a Senior Fellow of the Institute of Place Management. He has published extensively in various academic journals and he is co-editor of ‘Inclusive Place Branding’ (with M. Giovanardi and M. Lichrou, 2017), ‘Rethinking Place Branding’ (with G. Warnaby and G.J. Ashworth, 2015) and ‘Towards Effective Place Brand Management’ (with G.J. Ashworth, 2010).
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Magdalena Florek
IPBA Board Member
is a former Associate Professor at the Poznan University of Economics and Business in Poland. She is co-founder and Member of the Board of Best Place – the European Place Marketing Institute as well as Senior Fellow at the Institute of Place Management in UK. In 2006/2007 she was a senior lecturer at the Marketing Department, University of Otago in New Zealand. Magdalena is also scholarship holder of the Fulbright Program at Northwestern University and the Kellogg School of Management in USA. She is a member of the Editorial Boards of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Journal of Destination Marketing and Management, Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, and Tourism and Hospitality Management. Consultant in brand strategy, city and region promotion. Magdalena is co-author of brand strategies and other related projects for Polish cities and regions. She is an active speaker and member of teams working on many international projects and grants.
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Martin Boisen
IPBA Vice-Chairman
is a geographer who specializes in the marketing and branding of cities and regions as an integral part of urban and regional governance and planning. Martin is the owner of the advisory firm For the Love of Place and co-founding Board Member of The International Place Branding Association. He lives in The Netherlands, from where he has been involved in more than 100 advisory projects. His clients include cities like The Hague, Oslo, York and Ghent, and regions like Amsterdam Metropolitan Region, Provincie of Northern Brabant, the Veluwe and the Wadden Sea area. Martin also contributes as a panel expert to The Place Brand Observer, he’s a chief advisor to European Cities Marketing and has been involved in knowledge-development through UrbAct, Interreg and UNWTO. Next to his advisory work, Martin is a lecturer in Human Geography & Planning at the University of Groningen. He's published a number of influential research articles and book chapters on the topic, is a frequent keynote speaker at international events and a celebrated guest lecturer at several institutions around the world.
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Robert Govers
IPBA Chairman
is an independent international adviser, scholar, speaker and author on the reputation of cities, regions and countries. Since 2009 Robert Govers has co-edited and authored four books, including Imaginative Communities, on the topic of community reputation. He has also co-authored over 50 journal articles, book chapters and conference papers and has delivered numerous public speeches and business publications. In addition, he is co-editor of the quarterly journal, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. He has also been an adjunct or visiting scholar at Tsinghua University, Beijing; the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; the University of Leuven, Belgium; Rotterdam School of Management, the Netherlands; Loughborough University London Campus; IULM University Milano, Italy; and several institutes in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He also teaches place branding on the UNESCO World Heritage at Work Master's programme in Torino, Italy. Robert has held positions in South Africa, the Netherlands, Belgium and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He has been involved in many consultancy projects and advisory boards for reputable organisations such as the International Air Transport Association, the European Commission, the Flemish government and various ministries, tourism promotion boards, and regional and city administrations.
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Hong Fan
IPBA Board Member
is professor of Global Communication in School of Journalism and professor of Corporate Communication for the Executive MBA Programs in School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. She holds PhD on Language and Communication from University of Oxford, U.K. She is the founder and director of the Centre for National Image Research of Tsinghua University, a university-level interdisciplinary centre with professors from public administration, business management, architecture, humanities studies, Journalism, communication, arts and design, aiming to build the national image of the country as well as the brands of cities and enterprises in China. In recent years, Hong has led a number of Chinese national projects such as the research project ‘The Chinese Cultural Identity and Nation Branding’ and the consultancy project ‘2019 Beijing World Horticulture Expo’. Professor Fan is also the founder and director of City Branding Studio of Tsinghua University, which is the first government thinktank on place branding and image building. Hong is editor-in-chief of the book series of National Image Studies, and has published five books over the past years, covering nation branding, cultural identity, city branding, corporate reputation, cultural heritage, architecture, design, and other related fields.
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Marta Hereźniak
Assistant professor at the University of Lodz, Poland. The author of the first in Poland doctoral dissertation and the first book about nation branding. Expert of Polish Chamber of Commerce in Brand for Poland project. Consultant in brand related projects for companies, public institutions (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Regional Development etc.) and local governments. A leading consultant in the project on Kazakhstan country brand. Co-author of European Funds Brand strategy in Poland. The member of International Place Branding Association and Institute of Place Management, member of The Place Brand Observer research panel. Her research interest include: place brand identity development; measurement of place branding effectiveness, stakeholder engagement in place branding, place of origin branding.
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Nigel Morgan
IPBA Board Member
is Head of Surrey University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. He has senior management and governance experience on executive and advisory boards in universities, government agencies and charities, has held professorial titles in several universities, and has extensive experience in tourism, sport and leisure policy, strategy, development, marketing and in events and PR from his time in national agencies and local government. He has envisioned, established and led academic communities as a Head of School, Associate Dean, Head of Department, and Research Centre Director at Surrey, Swansea and Cardiff Metropolitan Universities. Nigel has spent 25 years promoting inclusive, creative and responsible tourism research, education and academic community engagement. He has sought to ‘make’ as well as ‘mark’ differences through his research, teaching and advisory interventions, working at the intersections of transformative learning, evidence based research and community activism. An economic and social historian by doctoral training, his research is encapsulated in three entwined strands: place marketing, power and identity; inequality and wellbeing; critical studies and gender. He is perhaps best known for co-founding the Critical Tourism Studies Network in 2005 and co-chairing it until 2015. He has led consultancy projects for clients in the UK, Europe, the US and Asia and his research has been funded by the ESRC, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, the EU and the Norwegian Research Council.
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Marco Bevolo
Dr. Marco Bevolo, PhD, is currently Researcher and Lecturer in International Leisure Management at a leading international academy in international leisure management and sciences. He earned his PhD on the role of design in generating urban futures at the Graduate School, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Tilburg University. In 1999-2009, he was a Director at Philips Design headquarters in the Netherlands. He is the founder of Marco Bevolo Consulting, working in foresight, futures research and strategic design for selected customers in Europe and Asia, including the Municipality of Eindhoven, Lighting Design Collective, and CitiesNext GmbH (Vienna). In this extracurricular capacity, in the lustrum 2010-2016 he has been the Principal Research Urban Futures for Philips Lighting, now Signify, in EMEA and Poland. He has contributed to seminars and events with the School of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy; Emerson College, Boston; the UNAM Post-graduate School of Architecture, Mexico City.
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Daniel Valverde Bagnarello
Official behind the country brand strategy “essential COSTA RICA” at PROCOMER, world’s #1 Trade Promotion Organization (ITC, 2014-2020). Alongside his career, Daniel is researching the impact of SDGs in place brand strategies for the Pompeu Fabra University. Recent achievements include being appointed president of the Ibero American Country Brands Council, collecting the Place Brand of the Year Award at the 2019 City Nation Place Global Conference in London and receiving the Branding Award at the 2020 Place Marketing Forum in Marseille.
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Florian Kaefer
Florian Kaefer, PhD is the founder of The Place Brand Observer, a leading online knowledge hub on place brand development and management and global network of professionals. Over the last eight years he has interviewed more than 260 leading place thinkers and practitioners, many of whom are now part of a bi-monthly expert panel hosted by TPBO, with insights published on PlaceBrandObserver.com. Dr Kaefer obtained his PhD from the Waikato University Management School in New Zealand, for which he researched the country's national image and its perceived brand credibility as a "clean, green" country-of-origin and tourist destination. He holds a masters degree in sustainable development (Exeter University, UK) and a bachelor in tourism management (Brighton University, UK). Florian is the author of An Insider's Guide to Place Branding: Shaping the Identity and Reputation of Cities, Regions and Countries (Springer, 2021), and Sustainability Leadership in Tourism: Interviews, Insights, and Knowledge from Practice (Springer, 2022). Currently based in Switzerland near Zurich, Florian is also the founder of the Sustainability Leaders Project (Sustainability-Leaders.com). He supports places and organizations as a coach, advisor and speaker (FlorianKaefer.info).
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Øyvind Såtvedt
s the Managing Director of the Oslo Region Alliance, which consists of the City of Oslo and 64 additional municipalities in the Oslo metropolitan region. The overarching aim of the alliance is to promote the region as a sustainable and competitive region. The alliance works with regional spatial planning, transport, climate and environment as well as business development and branding. Øyvind was a project leader for the development of the Oslo Region Brand Management Strategy, which was developed in partnership with Oslo Business Region. He now coordinates the Oslo Region Alliance’ work to promote the region internationally to attract talent and investments. Øyvind is a political scientist, and a former researcher and private consultant. He also has extensive experience from public management as chief of staff for the Governing Mayor of Oslo for eight years. The Oslo Region Alliance is a small organization in terms of staff and relies on a close collaboration with other partners such as Oslo Business Region, VisitOSLO, business clusters and other organisations and stakeholders.
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Frans van der Horst
Frans is program manager of the NL branding assignment at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. On behalf of the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Agriculture and Infrastructure his team is responsible for the deployment of the international positioning strategy of the Netherlands. Beside engagement and stakeholder management the team – which include subject experts, communication advisors and content experts – works on the positioning on specific essential topics like water, agriculture, energy and health. Frans is responsible for this assignments since 2020, before that he was working as a manager and consultant and Kantar – the marketing insights division of WPP – on themes like branding, communication, customer experience and innovation.
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Sam Taylor
is a Strategic Brand Project Lead (as of July 1, 2022). Prior to that, Sam has headed up the marketing team for ChristchurchNZ - an EDA which promotes Christchurch to residents, visitors and businesses across the full array of areas - major and business events, tourism, right through to business and talent attraction, and a local film office. Before ChristchurchNZ Sam worked as a Marketing Manager for a New Zealand tourism operator running in New Zealand, Australia and North America.
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Jens Thraenhart
is the Chief Executive Officer of Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI), the official national tourism organization of the island nation of Barbados in the Caribbean. BTMI is responsible for promoting Barbados as a sustainable tourism destination and the ultimate Caribbean vacation island by implementing marketing strategies that help the responsible development of tourism. In 2014, Jens Thraenhart was appointed by the tourism ministries of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and China (Yunnan and Guanxi) to head the Mekong Tourism Coordinating (MTCO) as its Executive Director. In 1999, he founded consulting agency Chameleon Strategies, an affiliate member of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). He has consulted for tourism ministries and hotel companies all over the world, with a focus on sustainable development, marketing, and digital transformation. Jens Thraenhart (www.thraenhart.com) has over 30 years of international travel, tourism, and hospitality experience, spanning positions in operations, marketing, business development, revenue management, strategic planning, and e-business. Jens Thraenhart has a doctorate degree in tourism and hospitality management (DHTM) from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and is educated at Cornell University with an MBA-accredited Master of Management in Hospitality, as well as a joint Bachelor of Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University Center 'Cesar Ritz' at Brig, Switzerland. Mr. Thraenhart was recognized as one of the travel industry’s top 100 rising stars by Travel Agent Magazine in 2003, was listed as one of HSMAI’s 25 Most Extraordinary Sales and Marketing Minds in Hospitality and Travel in 2004 and 2005, was named one of the Top 20 Extraordinary Minds in European Travel and Hospitality in 2014 and recognized as one of the Top 10 Most Influential Leaders in Travel and Tourism in 2022. He is the 2nd Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the UNWTO Affiliate Members, past PATA Board Member, past Executive Board Member of HSMAI, past Executive Board Member of IFITT, and past Chair of PATA China.
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Natalie Raben
is Chief Executive of WeAreWaterloo Business Improvement District (BID). Here she is responsible for enticing people to spend more time – and money! – in London’s Waterloo neighbourhood. This takes shape in events, marketing, greening and security initiatives. Prior to Waterloo, Natalie began her BID career in New York at the Lower East Side Partnership, also a BID, where she launched the organisation’s public art portfolio through the 100 Gates Project, a public art initiative that connected artists and businesses through murals on security gates. This grant funded programme went on to expand to several other neighbourhoods, successfully bringing hundreds of new murals to the city. More recently, she obtained her MSc from Manchester MET University in Place Management & Leadership.
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Melanie De Vocht
is one of two place brand managers at the City of Ghent (Belgium). In 2019, Ghent developed a place brand strategy in which it distinguishes itself from other cities by a Ghentian way of handling things. The strategy has one main goal: reflecting Ghent’s unique style in all aspects of city life. Using different tools (e.g., brand filter workshops, Value Proposition Canvas workshops), the team focuses on implementing this Ghentian style in the city organization and in every aspect of city life. Melanie obtained a bachelor’s in social work (2007), a master’s degree in Communication Sciences (2009) and finished her PhD in communication sciences at Ghent University in 2014. Her research focused on risk communication about food safety and included an internship at the World Health Organization. Afterwards, Melanie worked as a marketing manager in a small user’s experience company. Since 2016 she works at the City of Ghent. In the first years, she focused on city marketing and strategic communication, and in 2019 she took up the project lead in the development of the place brand strategy of Ghent.
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Martin McElligott
A native of Dundalk, joined the BIDS team In January 2016 and is responsible for managing and co-ordinating all aspects of the BIDs Company. In his role as “Town Centre Commercial Manager, Martin has added many positive and progressive solutions that has helped elevate the Town Centre on many levels. To name but a few, he successfully delivered new Christmas lighting Plans, Cultural development projects like “Seek Urban Arts", and operational projects like “Facades Operation Town Transformation” that have helped reshape the overall perception of Dundalk. With his first hand retail and commercial experience from his many years as an entrepreneur, Martin’s ability to both represent and understand a towns centre’s modern-day business and place making needs have helped refocus and reinforce Dundalk’s important status and position as a leading Town Centre in the North East region.
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