Hospitality Industry, Geobranding and Sustainable Development of

Resort Cities: Urban Aspects in the Stage of Active Development

Alexander D. Konovalov

, Evgeny V. Galdin

and Valeria N. Orobinskaya

North-Caucasus Federal University, Pyatigorsk, Russia

Keywords: Sustainable Development, Hospitality Industry, Urban Studies, Design of Architectural Environment,

Touristic Cluster, North Caucasian Federal District.

Abstract: The modern resort city is a complex phenomenon, a multi-layered structure, the overall functioning of which

depends on many aspects, the most important of which deserve not only municipal, but also federal attention.

Nevertheless, not all issues can be resolved administratively - the successful status of the resort city, the focus

of public attention on the strengths of the city, the correct implementation of its capabilities - all this is solved

quite effectively with the help of geo-branding mechanisms. The article discusses some aspects, the correct

implementation of which allows you to create a positive situation in which the components of geo-branding

territories are articulated and interact with each other, generating the very desired synergistic effect, the

presence of which can create not only “big names and big ideas”, but also “big territory ”, which, in turn,

undoubtedly contributes to the economic prosperity of cities and regions, being one of the key drivers of their

further prospective improvement and development.

1 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the hospitality industry, which forms,

among other things, the foreign policy image of both

a particular region and the whole country, is a

demanded and dynamically developing branch of the

modern world economy.

It is not surprising that this kind of direction is

included in the promising areas that are under the

special attention of the state structures of Russia –

after all, it is hospitality and the associated

development of the tourism cluster, exponentially

increasing financial and tourist flows, not only

contributes to the economic development of the

regions, being one of the drivers their further

improvement and long-term development, but also

can play an important role in the overall perception of

the image building of the state, both external as well

as domestic.

In general, a situation in which geo-branding,

branding of cities and territories, work on a positive

image of cities and regions (sometimes referred to as

"marketing of places", "urban marketing" and

"promotion of places" (Boisen et al., 2018), are

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subordinated systematic development, phased

development, designed for long periods of time, with

the involvement of public and private financial

injections, venture investment resources and human,

geographic, environmental and resource capital of

developing regions is by no means new - this kind of

activity is carried out all over the world, starting in

Europe, with its rich tourism traditions, firmly

declared and regularly supported by information and

event infusions by well-formed geo-brands,

traditionally tourist regions, cultural, gastronomic,

sports, competitive and other "places of power", as

well as firmly established in the cultural

consciousness of the masses since the 19th century

familiarization voyage lines, and ending with the

rapidly developing cities of Asia, Africa, Latin

America, so loudly and large-scale declaring

themselves in the last decade (Kokosalakis et al.,

2006; Martinez, 2012; Maheshwari et al., 2011).

Konovalov, A., Galdin, E. and Orobinskaya, V.

Hospitality Industry, Geobranding and Sustainable Development of Resort Cities: Urban Aspects in the Stage of Active Development.

DOI: 10.5220/0010588902510255

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 251-255

ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7

251

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

There is a sufficiently developed theoretical base

associated with this kind of activity - in particular,

views close to those described are formed and

promoted by one of the founders of the so-called

"radical geography", David Harvey, who in 1995 was

awarded the title of laureate of the Vautrin Lud Prize

(quite prestigious in professional communities a

prize, which is considered a kind of "Nobel Prize in

Geography").

In his studies, D.Harvey naturally comes to the

conclusion that the peculiarities of urban

development depend not only on the economic, but

also on the political and economic class of the city,

region, country (Harvey, 2018), which is also

confirmed in the famous "Anholt hexagon" (Anholt,

2007) , which considers the forms of representation

of the territory (city, region – up to the state) , and in

a number of other studies (Dinney, 2011; Gontsa,

2017; Bronnikova and Alekseeva, 2018; Kidwell,

2018; Montgomery, 2019; Wade, 2018), and in how

the other components of geo-branding of territories

are articulated and interact with each other,

generating the same synergistic effect, the presence of

which can create not only “big names and big ideas”,

but also “big territories”, which, in turn undoubtedly

contributes to the economic prosperity of cities and

regions, being one of the key drivers of their further

prospective improvement and development.

In the external direction of the formation of a

positive image (of the city, region, federal district and

the state as a whole), this can be as the creation and

further development of a positive image of the city (in

our case, both of the “resort city” per se , and of

Pyatigorsk, and more broadly – about the whole range

of resort cities of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, as a

special ecologically protected region, the flagship of

the tourism and hospitality industry in the entire

North Caucasian Federal District) .

The concept of a positive view of the city, first of

all, should include the creation, subsequent

development and development of all kinds of

additional channels of active urban (and regional)

communication - these can be a variety of incentive

actions, contests, thematic events that emotionally

involve the target audience in the sphere of the

representative conceptual field of the resort city.

Information should be delivered both by means and

capabilities of the federal, administrative resource,

and in the form of an informal information wave,

which, as a rule, has a greater impact than official

communication channels.

Active participation in promotions, contests,

events, etc. launches a self-organizing feedback

wave, competent and timely correction of fluctuations

of which can create a stable image of a modern,

fashionable, relevant, interesting and prestigious

vacation spot for an active category of citizens, which

will indirectly affect the passive part of the target

audience.

In the future, the so-called "printed" (official city

and regional) communication channels (various types

of media - newspapers, magazines, portals) can be

acupuncture applied to the created field, but only after

fixing the formation of a stable background of an

alternative or “unofficial” information wave.

In the internal direction of the formation of a

positive image of the city, work should be carried out

on a regular basis with the information field formed

by the population of the city, the building and

implementation of positive concepts and "mental

hashtags" that create a positive filling of the tension

of the conceptual semantic field, the development of

new common values and guidelines for the entire

population, creation of a system of public and

administrative assessment of the performance

assessment of each employed resident, regardless of

the field of activity.

The creation and development of fields of

operational positive information is also quite feasible

with the help of the method of architectural and

design amplification we are developing (Galdin,

2015), which is achieved in a number of ways,

including through the acupuncture integration of

“smart technologies” into the tissue of the city. For

more than a decade, this kind of practice has found its

successful solutions on the streets of many European

and North American cities – it is no longer a miracle

such complexes of street equipment that are able to

adapt not only to changes occurring with light filling,

pressure, humidity, wind speed, and other factors,

which can change cyclically during the day, but also

adapt to the environment, and even the behavior and

actions of passers-by - for example, the traffic lights

we mentioned and other devices that sound physical

objects for passing blind people or even processes

occurring nearby, self-adjusting street lights, self-

opening street benches and more.

Approximately the same technologies are used in

the newest intelligent PhilipsCityTouch control

system, interacting with the smart fabric of urban

infrastructure, which, for example, allows you to

remotely control the operation of street lighting,

down to each individual light source or in a system

format to monitor the energy status and, if necessary,

recharge city electric buses at stops.

Electrical alleys made of “tech trees” that generate

energy by mini-turbines built into artificial “leaves”

function and are controlled in a similar way, the

energy flows they create can be used to provide urban

open public spaces, including to support critical

ISSDRI 2021 - International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure

252

warning and response technologies techniques in

emergency situations.

Strengthening the technological aspect of self-

representation of a resort city, as an urbanistic model

of the functioning of a modern system based on the

principles of sustainable development, by means of

architectural and design amplification to create a

successful geo-brand, perhaps not only due to modern

technical means, widely used in the West, but also

with the introduction of the system urban survey – a

system that allows you to track the nearest references

from the population – from the introduction of the

latest sustainable technologies - from those described

above (which able to independently provide free

electricity from an ecological source to the

surrounding area) to – for example, billboards that

purify the air and create drinking water, urban

gardens with public support, competitions in city

districts aimed on conscious consumption of

resources, eco-conscience, philosophy of conscious

sustainable consumption, etc.

Additionally, it is necessary to develop an

individualized methodology for analyzing the

psychological climate (city, region, federal district),

in order to verify the planned indicators on the main

aspects of the perception of the city's image with the

internal psychological background of citizens.

In our opinion, it is appropriate to use the research

materials of David Burking and Loew Martin (with a

team of authors), entitled “The Own Logic of Cities.

New approaches in urbanism” (Berking et al., 2019).

The approach proposed by the authors –is considering

cities from the point of view of their own logic – runs

counter to the well-established perception of cities as

a set of economic processes and their reflection in the

minds of citizens and the main target audience of

consumers (tourists, investors, developers, operators

and functionaries of international and state

development programs).

The authors of this study not only appropriately

appeal to the indicative radical experience of modern

African cities, with their own logic of development ,

overcame economic conditions, and reached a

completely different level of broadcasting and

perception of the "image of a city", but also consider

alternative ways of developing and correcting the

image in a number of European cities, including

through "reflections", as exemplified by cities such as

Berlin and Vienna, Frankfurt and Hamburg, Sheffield

and Manchester (Kidwell, 2018; Montgomery, 2019;

Wade, 2018).

In our opinion, this experience is quite applicable

to the situation with the region of the Caucasian

mineral waters - the cities that go to it may not

broadcast unstructured, discordant "waves of image",

but, having united, work for the cumulative effect of

the perception of the region, respectively, having

previously distributed the zones of attention to the

strengths of each specific city, location, organization

of events, etc.

At the same time, be aware that any approach was

developed as a result of the analysis of a number of

interdisciplinary research, the combined concept of

"private cities logic" that " offers an alternative to the

established tradition, consider the city mainly as a

mirror of social processes " (Berking et al., 2019),

following the logic of functioning , the form and

structure of the organization of the cities under

consideration , as well as the meaning that is capable

of being produced and translated in a similar way

(Kavtaradze, 2016).

Revealing, defining, and further work with “own

logic of cities” at the moment represents the most

modern and relevant approach, in which it becomes

possible to use the energies arising from the

comparative analysis of the expectations and

references of the target audience of resort cities (as

already described above - these are not only

individuals and the "tourist flow", but also

organizations, structures and apparatus of the

international and state level), which, in turn, make it

possible to deliberately and productively focus on the

originality and heterogeneity of individual cities in

order to "establish specific patterns related to the

differences of one city from another, relying on their

own “logic” of each of them ” (Berking et al., 2019).

These aspects are tightly linked with such a

concept, which is gaining popularity in Russia, as

geo-branding or branding of territories (Anholt, 2007;

Dinney, 2011; Gontsa, 2017; Bronnikova and

Alekseeva, 2018).

3 RESULTS

The concept of branding of territories implies a rather

specific type of branding, the sphere of influence of

which includes not only the representation of urban

reality by means of a standard brand-image package,

including such tools as the development,

implementation, distribution and popularization of

actual symbols, corporate identity of the city and

promotional materials with it. related advertising

campaigns in support of the displayed city products,

but also “shaping the image of a city or a group of

settlements for various contact groups both

domestically and abroad”, which “is a unique tool for

increasing competitiveness, creating uniqueness,

originality and originality, makes it possible to

increase competitiveness, attract tourists and

investment in settlements” (Bronnikova and

Alekseeva, 2018).

Hospitality Industry, Geobranding and Sustainable Development of Resort Cities: Urban Aspects in the Stage of Active Development

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4 DISCUSSION

Geo-branding involves the creation of a single pool

of terrain opportunities – a kind of combination of

products and services available on the branded

territory , which can form the basis of a

communication strategy for promoting the region of

the Caucasian Mineral Waters and the North

Caucasian Federal District as a whole – good for this

kind of strategy there are appropriate conditions –

Caucasian Mineral Waters cities have a large reserve

of loyalty left by the population since Soviet times,

and significant competitive advantages over other

small resort towns of Russia, expressed in the

significant resort and recreational potential of

Caucasian Mineral Waters cities, as well as cultural

and historical heritage – the cities were visited by

many significant cultural figures who left a large

number of documented positive memories, which not

only contributes to the formation of relevant positive

references, but also allows you to appeal to the

historical layer, which not every city in Russia can

boast of.

In addition, the very material base for the

promotion of the cities of the Caucasian Mineral

Waters, the architectural heritage, the common

cultural heritage, the factor of the aesthetic and

health-improving mix of nature and civilization,

allows cities such as Pyatigorsk, Essentuki,

Kislovodsk, Zheleznovodsk to claim the title of eco-

sustainable "cities of the future” (Brook, 2014) – a

modern topical resort city with a developed

infrastructure, a powerful popular recreational base,

positive media content, a number of formed

communities (in various areas of the spheres of urban

organizations).

5 CONCLUSIONS

It remains to bring into harmony such the most

representative in the sense of internal (and external)

perception of the phenomena of everyday culture

(Kapkan, 2016) , as the food code of the culture of the

region , to work out the structure and functions of

gastronomic culture, to develop a number of

protocols for the general trend of service and

hospitality, including travel service , which has

convincingly proven its effectiveness in most

countries of the world, to create new relevant public

places for informal meetings: cafes, libraries, public

spaces, as well as modern attractive and recognizable

city shops, markets, pharmacies, etc., where people at

any time convenient to them can easily and quickly

obtain the required goods and services, as well as its

mean free and easy to communicate, to share positive

emotions, useful information, travel advice and

household, etc.

It is these places of recreation, entertainment,

exchange of opinions, etc. that are the most important

part of the daily life of modern citizens (Glushchenko,

2015), they form the urban environment, and it is on

them, as a stronghold of social life, that the attention

of each individual consumer is focused, regardless of

his social function– whether it is just a consumer of

tourism services in the region, or a responsible

functionary who analyzes possible investments and

points of growth and development of cities in the

region of the Caucasian Mineral Waters and the North

Caucasian Federal District.

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