An Investigation of the Future of Tabriz Metropolitan Branding Using Scenario-Based Planning Approach

Nowadays, cities and metropolises are becoming major players in geographical areas instead of countries. The cities compete seriously to show and differentiate themselves as the best choice for prospective tourists, investors, students and businessmen as well as talented people. In today's increasingly competitive world, brands are considered the most valuable assets, and managers and officials in various cities and organizations use their brand popularity index as a factor for success. In this regard, one of the key and initial steps to create a brand for each city is to evaluate the image of the existing city and the factors affecting it. In this step, important dimensions and factors affecting the urban image must be identified and evaluated. It should be noted that in the process of urban branding and recognizing the dimensions of the urban image, the competitive advantage of the city should be considered. Given that, in this research, with a future research approach, the most important drivers of Tabriz Metropolis branding have been identified and possible scenarios have been developed. Based on the results of Mic Mac Software analysis, out of 31 primary factors, 10 factors were identified as key effective drivers. Also, based on the quantitative analysis of Scenario wizard Software, 3 strong scenarios, 16 plausible scenarios and 250 weak scenarios were obtained. Among these three groups of scenarios, the highest validity was related to the first group scenarios, namely the golden scenarios.