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In the Name of Tourism: Developing an Image and Brand in the Book Town of Richmond

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Small Town Tourism in South Africa

Part of the book series: The Urban Book Series ((UBS))

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Abstract

As an inherent geographical concept, place branding is considered to create added value and meaning to small towns and to promote both tangible and intangible attributes to compete for a share of consumers, tourists, businesses, investments and skilled workers. As a backcloth to the specific case of a book town as an example of how branding impacts small town tourism development in South Africa, this chapter first briefly reflects on the concept of place branding, place imaging and identity and theme towns. As a place-based approach to small town tourism development, the small town of Richmond, branded as Africa’s first book town, is investigated using empirical evidence to illustrate how this particular brand has put the town on the proverbial tourist map. A key factor for successful branding of small town tourism is that of partnerships. In the chapter, it is seen that an intriguing aspect of the Richmond story is that there appears to be scant synergy or working relationship between the private initiators (the power elite) and the public authorities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    JM Coetzee is a South African Nobel Prize winner for the literature now living in Australia. Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor and director who writes in English

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geography and Environmental Studies, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Ronnie Donaldson

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  1. Ronnie Donaldson
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Correspondence to Ronnie Donaldson .

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Donaldson, R. (2018). In the Name of Tourism: Developing an Image and Brand in the Book Town of Richmond. In: Small Town Tourism in South Africa. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68088-0_3

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