City brand in the context of tourist attractiveness: the case-study of Nizhny Novgorod

The article considers the main approaches to the definition of a city brand, especially in terms of its creation and possible mistakes, as well as its role in the establishment of destination’s attractiveness through the example of Nizhny Novgorod. Tourist area is considered in the context of the need to acquire its competitive advantage in today's rapidly developing world through the prism of the uniqueness of tourist attraction. In this work the city is illumi- nated from the perspective of territory concentrating the main administrative and creative resources of the region, therefore, to develop its tourist attrac- tiveness is possible not only from the position of the searching competitive advantage, but also as a condition stimulating the use of internal resources and outsourcing for the city development. The article places emphasis on the need for branding as an effective method of creating and marking tourist attraction, and as the basis of a systematic approach to the positioning and promotion of the territory in the tourist markets. The authors explore the contemporary brand of Nizhny Novgorod and point out several major problems. The analysis is based on the results of a survey, held in 2013 and aimed at compilation and studying the profile of typical tourist and tourist attractiveness of the city. In the course of the survey the respondents (tourists from Russia, countries of the former Soviet Union and other foreign countries) were questioned on the topic of tourist attraction of Nizhny Novgorod. The authors prove that the brand effectiveness depend on credibility of im- pression being created. It arises only when a consumer believes that the dis- crepancy with reality is minimized. It is noted that the establishment of the city brand is not a fashionable goal in itself and cannot be far-fetched, or the implanted from outside.