The Process of Building a Destination Brand and Examination of Samsun as a Brand City

The present study was conducted to examine the perceptions and collective consciousness of the leading people in Samsun province to find out at which level of branding process the province is in and the information and thoughts of the related units were gathered. In the study, standardized open-ended interviews were conducted with seven people who witnessed the branding process of Samsun province, who played an active role or who are likely to play an active role in this process. In interviews conducted with the presidents of MüS？AD, SAG？D, SAM？KAD, TüMS？AD, SAMS？AD, SAMG？AD and Samsun Metropolitan Municipality Mayor, it was observed that everyone gathered around a common idea; however, they did not share these ideas with each other; and in addition to the fact that there was no headline for branding yet, everyone had a different perception and information on the issue. In this study, following city branding and city marketing assessments, the method and results of the study were given in detail and the things which can be done during the process of branding were discussed in detail