Regional Destination and Brand Identity: The Case of Piedmont, Italy

In recent years, research relating to marketing promotion has focused on the concepts of place branding and destination branding. However, a number of gaps in the existing literature need to be addressed. For example, while there are many studies on tourists and destination brands, few studies have considered the internal perspective of relevant public stakeholders. Moreover, many studies on place branding have focused on either entire countries or individual cities, paying little attention to place branding at the regional and sub-regional level, apart from regions that are already well-known brands. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in the Piedmont region of Italy, this paper addresses this lack of research, and focuses on the internal views of the destination management organisations (DMOs) on the brand development and brand identity of their territories. The results show that the process of developing a brand identity in the region is influenced by issues related to fragmentation, cooperation and coordination.