Measuring consumer based destination brand equity: İstanbul case

The concept of managing countries/cities, places in general, in the same way of managing a brand, is gaining importance with an aim of getting a better share from the world?s scarce resources. As the benefit of branding for products and firms is already well understood, numerous studies have been conducted so far to understand the brand and to define a metrics for measuring the brand equity. And recently studies have intensified to understand place brands and how to manage them.In this study, places in terms of touristic destinations were taken into consideration and the concept of destination branding has been searched. Then a survey has been conducted to find out how to measure a destination brand equity, choosing Istanbul as a case study. As a result, factors that determinate Istanbul?s brand equity have been defined which are respectively; giving satisfaction, being well known, to be liked, giving the feeling of safety and to be known as the leader destination brands.