Marketing cities for tourism: developing marketing strategies for Istanbul with lessons from Amsterdam and London.

Abstract

The tourism sector is relatively competitive, with many destinations competing with each other to attract potential tourists. Destinations,such as urban areas,need to besold with a greater emphasis on marketing activities. In fact, as a bundle of products consumedby a range of tourists with different needs and motives for visiting, urban tourism destinations differ from traditional holiday resorts and require more specific attention from tourism organisations responsible for marketing their cities. This research focuses on the set tourism organisations and their marketing activities ranging from market research to advertising. Attention is also paid to the tourism sector as an initiative to alleviate the urban areas' problems.The concept of an urban tourism destination as a marketable product is assessed with particular reference to the case study cities of London, Amsterdamand Istanbul. Extensive literature review, in-depth interviews with key personnel and field studies were held in the case study cities as the main research methods of the investigation. Information on marketing plans of the cities; structural characteristics of tourism organisations both in the public and private sectors; marketing alliances between these organisations; marketing tools used by city destinations;the competitiveness of urban areas in the both international and domestic tourism markets are sought from the findings of the research methods. In addition, product life cycle analysis,carrying capacity analysis and SWOT analysis are applied to the cities with support of existing data in order to assess the urban tourism products in detail. It is anticipated that such a comparative study will shed some light on the marketing activities of tourism organisations and will help to develop optimal marketing strategies for the urban tourism product of Istanbul.