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INTRODUCTION
Tourism is not the only objective of place marketing. According to Papadopoulos (2004), place marketing efforts of local, regional and national governments involve a variety of objectives such as country positioning in international relations, enhancement of a place's exports, protection of domestic businesses from 'foreign' (including other regions in the same country) competition, attraction or retention of development factors and generally positioning the place for advantage domestically and internationally in economic, political and social terms. However, tourism is intimately connected to the place marketing process, because it is used by local and national governments as a vehicle for place positioning, development and regeneration (Hall, 1997). Hence, tourism is often used as a medium for the achievement of a number of place marketing objectives and the marketing of places is turned into an increasingly 'professionalised', highly organised and specialised industry that encourages the growth of tourism (Gotham, 2002).
This expansion of marketing from the corporate to the public domain entails challenges for marketers. Marketers are assuming new roles and responsibilities beyond the domain of goods and services, for which, according to Ashworth and Voogd (1990b), marketing was originally developed. As a result, place marketing requires an engagement with public policy issues (Anholt, 2008). In addition, place marketing requires a shift of moral base (Crane and Desmond, 2002) and the development of an appropriate ethos in order to deal with matters of public interest (Bovaird and Rubienska, 1996). In the case of tourism destinations, this ethos involves a consideration of the local element of places (Hall, 2000).
This article stems from the theoretical and empirical investigation of place marketing from a local perspective. Through the use of a narrative methodology, it looks into local stakeholders' narratives of the island of Santorini. These involve key themes in the local theorising in relation to present challenges and future visions. The article presents the key themes and discusses the insights that can be drawn for place branding.
PLACE AS PRODUCT AND BRAND: KEY CHALLENGES
Place marketing has been extensively concerned with the complex nature of places as products and brands. According to Ashworth and Voogd, places can be seen as products as they are 'logically the point of consumption of the complex of activities that comprises the tourism...