Examining the Role of City Brand in Introducing Iranian Cities to the World

World cities are now in a competition with other places to reach attention of investors, visitors, skillful workers and events. City branding is a strategic way of local government to win this competition and to attain economic, politics and socio-cultural objectives. Unfortunately Iranian cities haven‟t been able to take a part in this competition in spite of its inherent potentials and all efforts which they have done. City branding could be the best solution to Iranian cities‟ lack of popularity in today‟s globalized world and is studied in this research as a tool to improve Iranian cities‟ global image and show all their hidden values. First the definition of city brand, the way which is created and then some factors to evaluate the branding potentials of cities was identified to be used in the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine which Iranian city has the most potentials to be successfully branded. The results shows that Isfahan, compared with other cities of Shiraz and Mashhad with the final priority of 0.438 is chosen as one and in the end it was proposed that its popularity among the Iranian cities should be used to be introduced as a global level as a hospitable environment and tourism destination.

Keywords:

City brand , Iranian cities , Tourism , Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)