摘要：The article insists on a clear difference between place branding (city or nation branding) and destination branding, while a number of Croatian and some Southeast European cities, recognizing tourism as economic opportunity, tend to see their urban space almost exclusively as various destinations. Branding processes follow exactly the same line of development, often failing to include the main fabric of the city – the local community itself. In the article, branding processes of selected cities in Croatia and branding projects in several Southeast European cities have been researched. The results show that the majority of them have designed their brand identities as if tourism was the only cultural and economic fact the community has to offer. Places are turned into destinations and destination branding methods work only towards attracting the outsiders, which then results in the lack of sustainability for the insiders. Thus communities become ‘tourism products’ and, within such a framework, the issues of the real city identity, its carriers and forms are neglected. In the article the top-down approach to place branding is revisited, new factors – cultural and social participation - are recognised in the reconfiguration of economy and identity. This calls for grounding the place branding methods on the issue of self-perception connected to the vision of communal development. Thus a new concept of identity system is proposed as a theoretical frame for the working methodology. It is a new approach to branding (or rather identity making) which enables individuals to contribute to the collective symbolic framework respecting the city and its citizens while at the same time allowing outsiders to get to know its substantial values.
