Some Questions on City Marketing

Abstract

Due to the globalisation of world economy, countries – just like their regions and their cities – are forced to increase their competitiveness. They need powerful methods to (re)gain advantages and (re)position themselves. The city marketing seems to solve these problems by the use of marketing techniques well known from the trade of consumer products.

The question is whether they are capable of reaching these aims, and if so, to what extent, and if not why they fali short of expectations.

In my essay I focus on the analysis of marketing tools and methods with a special attention given to the involvement of Hungarian cities. The attention is drawn to problems stemming from an inappropriate use of marketing tools, like the fragmentation of efforts, deterioration of public spending priorities, problems of redistribution of access, problems of accountability, the risk of cultural standardisation, and processes leading to a zero sum game.

It can be concluded that the marketing approach offers considerable opportunities and benefits to cities in inter-urban competition, but its ability to tackle deep-seated economic problems and distribute benefits fairly is quite questionable.

In the case of Hungarian towns and local governments these problems are not that acute, since most of them can not be characterised by any sort of entrepreneurial attitude, nor with a marketing-led approach, so there is still the place for the utilisation of marketing tools.