Branding, promotion, and the tourist city

The focus of this chapter is the relationship between cities, media, and tourism. It commences with a discussion of the image as a central element of tourism before considering the more recent forms of media and, in particular, social media which construct the tourist space and its experience. It then moves on to examine urban tourism and the features and elements that mark it as a specific form of tourism, and important here are the practices and processes of city branding. I show that travel and tourism (including that associated with the urban) are mediated both by symbolism and situated interaction.