Narratives of a tourism destination: Local particularities and their implications for place marketing and branding

This article presents an investigation into local narratives of place and their implications for place marketers and policymakers. It first examines the key challenges involved in marketing places in general and tourism destinations in particular. Following this, it presents, through a narrative methodology, the views of local stakeholders of the island of Santorini, Greece, in relation to their experience of the place's rapid transformation into a tourism destination. Drawing on the local narratives of place and their theorising of local particularities, the article discusses important implications for place marketing, including the political challenges and the role of place image in successful place branding.