An evaluation of symbol structures' influence on establishing brand cities and a practice

In this paper, issues of brand, brand image, brand identity, destination branding, symbol, symbol buildings, city branding, symbol buildings in Turkey and all over the World and brand cities have been addressed. Neccesity of cities to have a positive image as brands and as one of the elements forming the brand identity, the effect of city symbols on city branding have been researched.There are many brand cities and well known symbols of them all over the World. In our country, four city of ours (İstanbul, İzmir, Ankara, Antalya) have been taken into the scope of 2023 Tourism Strategic Plan and emphasis their need to be improved. These four cities comprises the main data source of this study. The aim of this study is to determine the symbol buildings of İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir and Antalya cities within the scope of 2023 Tourism Strategic Plan?s ?establishing brand cities? context and to specify the effects of these buildings on branding city. To achive this, the opinions of local residents and domestic tourists have been considered.In the research, each of the cities was accepted as subpopulation and stratified sampling method has been adopted by dividing the local residents of cities according to their county, quarter and socio-economic status. On the other hand, convenience sampling method has been applied to select the domestic tourists in the research cities. A questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. The questionnaire comprise of three parts. The first part has five questions to determine the demographic characteristics. On the second part, a five point likert scale has been used. The participants were exposed to the questions aiming the most important symbol buildings in four cities. From İstanbul, İzmir, Ankara, Antalya and other cities 1937 participants in total took part in the study. In the evaluation process, It is planned to use frequency and percentage distribution, aritmetic mean, standard deviation, t-tests, one-way anova in compliance with the purpose of the study.This analize shows that, symbol structures are positive effective on making cities as brands and participants have tendency on visit symbol structures. Symbol structures are nessesary to advertise cities but not enough. The symbol buildings of İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir and Antalya cities have been determined. Ayasofya Museum is the most important symbol structure of İstanbul, and with a slight difference, Tokkapı Palace has been the second important structure. Ankara has a strong symbol structure compared with other cities. Anıtkabir Mausoleum is the most important symbol structure in Ankara. İzmir's symbol structure is Clock Tower. House of the Virgin Mary has been the second important structure following. Aspendos Theatre has been established as the most important symbol structure of Antalya City.