City Branding in Cyprus: From Theory to Development

This paper is concerned with the extent of implementation of city marketing and branding in Cyprus. In the effort to investigate this, a research was conducted in three major cities in Cyprus: Nicosia, Limassol, and Pafos. The approach of the research was to construct an interview with questions posed to key players in city development and management. The questions were formed via extrapolation from five hypotheses which were based on a collection of elements derived from an integrated city branding framework. The literature review is investigated, as well as matters involving city marketing as a part of urban governance. The relevant data is analysed and an evaluation of city marketing and branding theory, implementation in Cyprus is presented. The final conclusions are concerned with matters such as the lack of understanding for the need of city marketing by local authorities, the competitive behaviour of municipalities, the lack of communications with local communities, the schism between the private and public sectors and lack of synergies, and the limitations posed to local authorities by the current legal framework in Cyprus.