Destination marketing practices and the role of stakeholders in the path of city branding: A study on Adana province

It is also very important to create brand awareness in the process of determining marketing strategies. As in the branding of institutions, goods and services, there is a branding awareness and process for cities as well. Cities have their own history, culture, art and natural beauties. They contribute holistically to the image perceived and created by consumers. Branding a destination means making it known with its specific features. The image and reputation a destination has are the judgments people have about it. The purpose of wanting to brand a city is to improve the perception in people's minds, as well as to attract more investment and business to that destination. While trying to make a destination a brand city, showing the values that local people and visitors can find something from will be the most important item that will contribute to this process. Another important point is that initiatives for city branding are much more likely to be successful if they are first adopted by the city's own citizens and assume an identity. In the core of this study, it is aimed to examine the destination marketing practices that have been carried out to change the reputation of Adana province in a positive way. In addition, the impact of destination marketing practices on the city in terms of the above-mentioned concepts and the contributions of some of the stakeholders who played an active role in the process were examined. For this reason, face-to-face interviews were conducted with selected stakeholders. In this study, unlike previous related studies, the interview method, one of the qualitative research methods, was used to collect data.This research was carried out in two stages. First of all, detailed interviews were held with the Cultural and Social Affairs Department of Adana Metropolitan Municipality, which is the largest local government branch of Adana province, in two sessions. In the second stage, interviews were held with content producers from Adana, who have more than 400,000 followers, using the power of social media, one of the most effective marketing tools today.