Conducting a

Place Audit
Week 15, APM 3005
 Place audit – What is the place like today? What
are the major strengths/weaknesses,
opportunities, threats, major issues?

Vision and goals – What do residents want the

place to become?

Strategic
Marketing Strategy formulation – What broad strategies will
help the place reach its goals?

Plan
Action Plan – What specific actions must the place
undertake to carry out its strategies?

Implementation and Control – What must the

place do to ensure successful implementation?
Conducting a Place Audit

• Economic/Demographic features
• Population size & composition; housing market; industry structure and
labour market characteristics; community health characteristics; natural
resources; transportation facilities; public safety and crime statistics;
education and research institutions; recreation and cultural resources.
• Helps to answer questions about ‘livability’, ‘visitability’ and ‘investibility’

• Identify Main Competitors

• In each arena: major conferences; specific types of tourists;
migration/students; youth; business investment
Conducting a Place Audit

• Major Trends and Developments

• Food/Gastronomy; Sport/Wellness; Culture; Climate/Sustainability;
Global developments; Tax/Economic situations
• Understand difference between macro and micro forces that affect the
place

• Analyse Strengths and Weaknesses (Internal)

• Identify Opportunities and Threats (External)

 Conducting a Place Audit

Where are we now? Strategic analysis

• In order to assess the nation brand’s current competitive position,

it is necessary to conduct both internal and external analysis
• Internal analysis aims to:
• Evaluate the nation brand’s capabilities across a range of sector-specific
indicators
• External analysis focuses on:
• The nation brand’s competitors
• Wider environmental forces
 Conducting a Place Audit

Internal analysis objectives

• Internal analysis needs to be conducted on a sectoral basis in order

to:
• Identify existing capabilities
• Evaluate the strength of these capabilities
• Derive appropriate action points based on the nation brand capability
analysis
Conducting a Place Audit

Places to start

• Trends and transactions related to tourism and economic

development – published reports and presentations
• Past marketing, collateral materials, websites and PR –
tourism promotion
• Local & travel media archives to assess their coverage
• Social media and user-generated sites
Conducting a Place Audit

Places to start

• Government websites (especially Culture, Economic

Development, FDI, Tourism)
• Social Media profiles
• Travel media
• Political/Economic/Business media
• Consumer-facing tourism sites
• Place Branding websites/Case Studies/Academic journals
Collect, Synthesize & Analyse:

• What story do the statistics (economic, social, cultural,

housing, demographic etc) tell us?
• Identify Brand Image
• Competitor analysis
• Conduct a SWOT
• Devise a problem statement
Cities

1. Barcelona
2. Budapest
3. Edinburgh
4. Hong Kong
5. Lisbon
6. Seoul
7. Sydney
8. Tokyo