Proposing a Place Branding Model Based on Brand Attachment by Grounded Theory

Nowadays, branding is a popular and powerful tool which cause distinction amid similar places in the competitive tourism market. Among the places, Islands create unique experiences for tourists due to their mainland. Kish Island needs branding to compete with other tourist islands of Southwest Asia to use its special potential to become the top tourist destination.This research aim to proposing a model of branding based on brand attachment for Kish Island.Since very few studies have been done on the branding of tourist islands, grounded theory (Systematic GTM)with the approach of Strauss and Corbin used for theorizing and identifying dimensions of the model.Theoretical sampling was used through deep semi-structured interview of experts in the field of tourism, marketing and brand. After extracting the initial concepts, open, axial and selective coding of the concepts were performed by Maxqda 18 software.The outcome of the research model indicated that the process of branding was affected by the casual condition which named as strategic brand management. Thus, place-oriented marketing, economic and place brand action strategies lead to desirable result such as place attachment, place value, cultural-economical development of Kish Island. The process was strengthened by contextual conditions such as environmental-legal factors and cultural- social factors as well as encountering with branding challenges.