City marketing and city branding: The case of Elazığ province

Just like the products and services, cities also can be subject of marketing. Marketing activities and branding works can be applied also for cities. In this context, cities that are carried out with success marketing and branding practices, it can take the city to investors, more visitors, qualified people and can be a more livable city. In line with the above description the purpose of the thesis is, to determine city perceptions of the visitors about Elazığ, to ascertain the positive and negative aspects of the city. Another aim of this thesis is, to contribute to process of create Elazığ's city brand identity. For this purpose; the dimensions of correlation were analyzed between town people, city government, tourism potential of city, physical and social facilities of the city and city perception of the visitors and also dimension of relations were analyzed between city perception of the visitors and city loyalty. For this aim, correlate analysis, two-sample t-test and variance analysis ANOVA were used to determine that and city perception of the visitors. The thesis has demonstrated that there is a strong correlation between town people, city government, tourism potential of city, physical and social facilities of the city and city perception of the visitors and also between city perception of the visitors and city loyalty. Key Words: Marketing, Branding, City Marketing, City Branding, City Perception.