An Archaeological Excavation into the Fields of Place Marketing and Place Branding

Archaeologists dig down through layers of history hidden under the surface of sites under investigation, identifying the structures and artefacts that help them interpret how a place has developed over time. This paper adopts a similar approach: Examining layers of theories from over the past 40 years that have contributed to the development of the fields of place marketing and place branding, and unearthing historic structures (various bodies of literature), and artefacts (individual papers) to allow this investigation to interpret the past and how it has contributed to the present state of the fields. This site under investigation has been inhabited not just by marketers, but also by scholars of international economics, tourism, nation and nationalism, cultural heritage, political science and social research, all contributing to the richness of the archaeology in various ways, sometimes cohabiting the field in harmony, but at other times disagreeing about the very fundamental nature and purpose of the landscape, its uses, and its future. A more developed understanding of the varying dominant methodologies and focus of these diverse disciplines is needed to help contemporary theorists lay new foundations to develop the fields of place marketing and place branding for the future.