UNIVERSITY OF ARTS IN BELGRADE UNIVERSITÉ LYON 2 Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies UNESCO chair for Cultural Management and Cultural Policy in the Balkans Master thesis: IDENTIFYING AND CREATING THE IDENTITY OF BELGRADE By: Bojana Bursać Supervisor: Prof. Divna Vuksanović, PhD Belgrade, July 2006 Acknowledgement Without help, support, and encouragement from several persons, I would never have been able to finish this work. It is a pleasure that I have now the opportunity to express my gratitude for those that helped me. Foremost, I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my supervisor Professor Divna Vuksanović, Ph.D. for her help, support and constant encouragement during planning and accomplishment of the research and the thesis writing. I wish to express my thanks to Professor Milena Dragićević- Šešić, Ph.D. and Professor Vesna Đukić-Dojčinović who gave me valuable help during my work. In addition, special thanks to the French Cultural Centre for giving me the opportunity to experience the manifestation European capital of culture- Lille 2004, during my internship in Conseil régional Nord-Pas-de-Calais, where I have developed my initial idea for the thesis. I am very grateful to all my interviewees and interviewers who have devoted their time and effort for this research. Last, but not least, I thank my family, boyfriend and friends for their never ending understanding, patience and support. 2 Abstract The present time, popularly known as the “century of city”, demands a detailed definition of a city’s identity and promotion of its brand in order to provide differentiation from other similarly defined places, as well as to defend its own identity from the possible negative effects of branding. The main topic of this paper is the identity of Belgrade, a city enduring significant difficulties during its history, while still being very persistent and lasting for many years on its geographical position. Thus, the aim of the present study is to evaluate existing practice in Belgrade identity building and promotion, and to propose the grounds for city branding on the basis of the theory and practice of various disciplines such as city identity, city branding and city marketing. The main study questions emerged from- What are present main components of Belgrade’s identities and what are the possible ones? and How can they be applied in the future of Belgrade’s development? The notion of city identity is described from the point of view of different social sciences, based on quadripartite composition of physical setting, activities, meaning and genius loci. Within the comparison of the presented history of Belgrade and socio-demographic characteristics with the PR and marketing city presentation, master plan of Belgrade and survey, it can be argued that city characteristics are only superficially used in city identity creation and that current city images are not presenting the best possible projection of Belgrade as a city of the future. Throughout interviews with citizens, city representatives and tourists, as well as from research conducted on the Yahoo! Travel website, some new perspectives of Belgrade were introduced, while many previously held hypotheses were confirmed. Finally, the result and proposition for identity direction and branding of the city were done by adjusting some of the identities of Belgrade already existed during its history, encompassing the characteristics and values that can be perceived by the interviewees that took part in a survey on Belgrade (residents of Belgrade, representatives of the city in cultural, tourism and marketing and tourists), as well as, using the tendencies of the theory and practice of city identity building and brand definition. Key words: city identity, city marketing, city branding, Belgrade 3 CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 5 1. 1. The Aim of the Thesis 5 1. 2. The Main Research Questions 5 1. 3. Conceptual Scope, Structure and Methods 6 2 CITY IDENTITIES, IMAGE AND BRANDING 8 2. 1. City 8 2. 2. City Identity 9 2. 3. Manifold of City Identity Concepts 14 2. 4. City Marketing 19 3 PLACE BRAND 23 3. 1. How Place Becomes a Brand? 25 3. 2. For / Against Place Branding 26 3. 3. Some Examples of Branded Cities 28 4 DEFINITION OF BELGRADE 31 4. 1. Belgrade History In-between the East and the West 31 4. 2. Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Belgrade 39 4. 3. Belgrade Identity in Previous Researches 41 4. 3. 1. Selected Literature Overview 41 4. 3. 2. Previously Organized Projects/Manifestation Exploring Belgrade’s Identity 47 4. 3. 3. Belgrade Identity through PR and Marketing Materials 54 4. 4. Survey on Belgrade’s Identity 63 4. 4. 1. Survey Planning and Execution 63 4. 4. 2. Results- What are suggested identities of Belgrade? 69 4. 4. 3. Analysis of the Yahoo! Travel, Belgrade, Yugoslavia – Yahoo! User Ratings & Reviews 84 5 THE PROPOSED IDENTITY PILLARS OF BELGRADE IDENTITY 87 6 CONCLUSIONS 98 7 REFERENCES 102 8 APPENDICES 113 SOMMAIRE 123 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 129 4 1 INTRODUCTION Belgrade, a city with specific history on a strategically interesting geographical position, has frequently changed its external and internal image. Various identities of the city, some similar and some very different have been developed over time, but many of them have been left covered. Therefore, it is a real challenge and responsibility to identify them and to, eventually, suggest possible patterns for development. The overall identity identification would enable a city to renovate itself, first spiritually and later spatially, combining both images of past and present and influencing the future. 1. 1. The Aim of the Thesis From that base, the aim of the thesis emerges- to acknowledge the values and characteristics of the identity of Belgrade is based on in order to enable its understanding, as well as, its application in promotion, presentation and town branding. That aim can be explained by the following objectives as: - Proving that Belgrade has energy to move forward despite all the problems in the past decade(s); - Giving Belgrade the possibility to be recognized as a significant and positively different part of Europe; - Identifying some of the needs, particular problems and present characteristics of certain aspects of Belgrade's identity during the discussion with citizens and tourists; - Providing a better understanding of Belgrade from the point of view of its citizens; - Understanding the perceptions of visitors to Belgrade (or what was above and what was beyond these expectations); - Providing the basis for the promotion of the city beyond the borders of Serbia. 1. 2. The Main Research Questions The main questions of the thesis are: What are present main identities of Belgrade and what are the possible ones? and How they can be applied in the future of Belgrade’s development? The key words used in the text would be explained in details though the thesis, such as city/ urban identity, city marketing, city branding and Belgrade. Following the main question, the hypothesis of the paper would be adjusting some of the identities of Belgrade that have already existed during its history, encompassing the characteristics and values that can be perceived by the inhabitants of Belgrade, representatives of the city in cultural, tourism and 5 marketing and tourists, in addition to using modern tendencies in city identity building, so that there could be a regeneration and renovation of Belgrade's identity. At the same time, as a two-way process, the citizens could identify themselves with that very identity, enabling it to become the part of them. 1. 3. Conceptual Scope, Structure and Methods Professionals in the fields of urban development, city marketing, city branding, tourism planning and development, as well as those working in the planning and development of culture in cities, have conducted a significant amount of research and are continuing to add to this body of research. Still, one of the largest problems is that research in urban development is not in line with those of city marketing, branding, tourism and cultural planning and development and vice versa; they are simply not referring to one another. The discipline of urban development has developed the skills and methods based on the professional norms of city planners, art historians and architects. It then evaluates them according to the standards of public interests, keeping in mind collectiveness as a responsibility. On the other hand, city marketing, tourism and cultural planning and development are rooted in the techniques of commercial management, even when such management is undertaken by public organizations. Therefore, during the interdisciplinary cultural management research, two very different groups of literature were dealt with, while writers from these different fields use very similar terms in different contexts. This thesis is divided into an introduction, followed by four main parts and conclusions. First of all, many of the paper’s key-terms and concepts have been presented through descriptive and historical methods. Also, varieties of improvement of the city identity are explained in the part of the paper that discusses flagship projects, mega-event hosting ("Capital of culture") and in the concept of creativity in and of the city. Place branding in theory and practical work is presented in next chapter. After explaining such terms as brand, place brand, there is an explanation of what might be the possible steps for becoming the place brand (the descriptive and comparative method). Before naming some of the examples of branded cities, the discussion for and against branding is presented. The subsequent chapter concentrates on the main key-word of the work, the city of Belgrade. First Belgrade is defined according to socio-cultural characteristics (descriptive method), going back in the history of the city (descriptive-historical method), then an analysis of the 6 city through previous research and projects with the city’s current promotion mostly presented by the Tourist Organization of Belgrade (comparative method).