Marketing activity has to be composed and programmed like a screenplay of a film. Its 4 aspects regard: economy, tourism, public relations (PR) and infrastructure.
6.3.1. Economy
Local economy of our city or region has to be developed so that it can receive and host capital import in order to create jobs and to increase the quantity and quality of products and services for the local population. Of course these products and services should answer the existing demand as well. The operation program of marketing activity focusing on economy should follow the structure below:
1. Auditing and listing all available local conditions influencing economy:
Local labour (quantity, age, sex, education, qualification, unemployment).
Local society (inclusiveness, the inclination of NGO-s, frequency of crimes).
Local legal regulations (taxation, allowances, preferences for capital allocation).
Local natural and physical resources (water, ores, raw materials, protected landscapes, wildlife, state of environmental pollution).
2. Auditing and finding target groups that may express demand for the above conditions among:
The operators (managers) of companies that might be interested in choosing our city or region as one of their premises;
The developers (owners) of the companies that may find our region or city suitable to settle down;
The students seeking higher education faculties in the universities of our city or region;
The ill people seeking treatments and remedy in our hospitals, sanatoriums, medicinal water spas.
3. Composing professional CI (corporate identity) images of our city or region for all available means of communication (newspaper, magazines, TV channels, radio stations, Internet portals, posters, flyers home and abroad), suggesting that our city is a suitable destination place for different business production, services, market, students and the ill.
6.3.2. Tourism
In city and regional marketing activity tourists are always regarded as a separate target group. Not because of their economic, but their PR importance. The most authentic information about a city or a region is that it is interpreted personally by an acquaintance, or a friend who has been there.
Therefore the tourist potentials of a city or region are the subject of an independent business branch: tourism, including catering, entertainment and accommodation. There are travel bureaus specialising in this field. Since it is about business, local governments do not perform tourist activity themselves.
They support local travel companies like any other business company. However, since it is very important that visitors have good impressions, local governments should see to the success of festivals, carnivals, cultural and sporting events.
They should support developing and improving local accommodation facilities, local transportation, public and all other business services, like public safety and infrastructure on the whole. With these improvements visitors are likely to have good impressions while staying in a region or city. If the region is rich in some natural beauties like seashores, mountains, natural parks, nature conservation area, wildlife, caves, etc. it is the duty of the local authority as well to preserve them and to try to keep environmental pollution under control. If the city or region is rich in cultural monuments and heritage, the local government has to maintain these in a sustainable manner and ensure accessibility to these monuments for not only the local residents, but for tourists as well.
So the structure of the tourist aspect of activity audit is the following:
Supporting local travel bureaus.
Keeping tourist local tax, if any, low.
Improving local infrastructure used by most tourists (accommodation, transportation, entertainment, communication, cultural events, sporting facilities).
Contributing to the central government’s protection of natural beauties and healthy environment.
Reducing local crime.
Local governments should not forget in competence place marketing those tourists, leaving the city or the region satisfied, are the most efficient agents of PR activity of their city or region.
Tourists can have different destinations. When we segment the tourists’ market, we have to bear in mind our attractions. If we have large supermarkets and we are situated close to the country’s border, we have to encourage shopping tourism. If we have a beach we have to invite summer holidaymakers and families with children. If we have medicinal waters we have to advertise our available
balneology services among the elderly people whose illnesses can be cured and treated with our water. If we have high mountains we can profit on tourists interested in winter sports or mountaineering, etc.
6.3.3. PR
The public relation activity in urban and regional marketing includes:
1. The composition of the interpretable and communicable professional CI, the survey and modification of outer and partner CI and the formation of inner CI.
2. Conveying and communicating the above CI images, but first of all the professional and outer images to the target groups in the potential and segmented market.
So the composition of the CI-s is not an image auditing activity in this instance, but building the final form of the images to be communicated towards the target groups.
The most efficient channels of communication have to be found in the direction of each target group. This is the task of marketing experts.
TV Radio Newspaper
Internet national local nat. local nat. local Magazine Books, CD
Posters, flyers
Local Souvenirs Different channels for reaching different target groups
Local or regional governments have different tasks in finalizing the CI of the city or region.
The interpretable and communicable image of the:
OUTER CI PARTNER CI PROFESSIONAL CI INNER CI
Control: survey, modification Full responsibility: formation, shaping The type of task a local government has in connection with the CI image
The local government is responsible for constructing and communicating the image of the professional CI in order to create jobs and attract capital to the city or region. The local government is responsible for the image of the inner CI among local population. The images of the partner and the outer CI are created more or less independently from the local government in office. The local government has to conduct some investigation to reveal these images first of all among the potential target groups interested in visiting the city or region. They are tourists, employees, residents of other regions, students, ill people, central government (it is also a component of the professional image) and the most important agent: the media and press.
If the outer CI has a negative image in the mind of some journalists, they can do the greatest harm to the success of marketing the city or region. Therefore it is especially important to maintain good relations with the press, to get well known journalists to write about our city or region, to invite them and show them the local advantages, beauties, possibilities, developments. The positive opinion of the independent press18 contributes as much to a successful competence marketing of our region or city, as those tourists who have already visited us and had good impressions. It is also important to issue regular press releases about the latest attractions for the written and electronic media.
There are several directions and major target groups of the PR activity of the local government, the two most important being the local residents and the capital
Administration: central government
(PROF. CI) Administration: other local governments (OUTER CI) OrganizationsAdministration: twin cities (PARTNER CI)
The directions of the PR activity in urban and regional marketing
The images of the outer CI have to be modified according to the demands of the target groups; the images of the professional and inner CI have to be invented before communicated to the local population and the business decision makers.
18 Not affiliated with the local government or local civil organizations.