City branding and urban tourism: a case study of Seoul and Taipei

Abstract

City Branding has become a contemporary design practice of local government for promoting tourism in recent years. Its application, largely through urban tourism marketing, to the definition and communication of the characteristics of locations suggests an alternative line of inquiry beyond building criticism. In Seoul city, in order to develop new image and increase city competitiveness in the long term of tourism, city's public design has to be fostered. Meanwhile, for increasing competitiveness of Taipei's tourism have been involved policies with mega-event that may create more internationally attractive place, it is both physically and economically branding the city's image and attracting more foreign tourists. The purpose of this study is to discuss the improvement of urban tourism as means to design urban area and to strengthen competitiveness by city branding. For this, the paper investigates cases of Taiwan and Seoul of urban tourism in different contexts such as culture, mega-events and local government's design policy