Structural Equation Modeling Approach for explaining the relationship between city development plans and city branding from the viewpoint of tourists (Case Study: Birjand)

A city requires city brand and appropriate strategies for beneficiaries, especially tourists; hence, city development plans can affect the type of city brand orientations. Accordingly, this study was conducted to identify the effective factors to design structural equation modeling (SEM). SEM was employed to rank the factors and find the correlation between them using Forner-Larcker Matrix. This was an applied-correlational study in which, data were collected through convergent mixed methodology, library study, questionnaire, and Semi-structured interviews. Birjand was chosen as the research field and a statistical sample was chosen at descriptive statistics using purposive and snowball sampling methods. Accordingly, 19 subjects were selected from urban experts, and 381 tourists were chosen at the quantitative step using simple random sampling. findings obtained from interviews implied that some points should be considered for the city branding of Birjand. The factors include the significant militarily and academic impact of Birjand on historical aspect and service-based economy of the city, cultural capitals, and the arts that are forgetting, immigration, and implementing the development-driving plans. The research model indicated that city development plans had the highest positive effects on the landscape and mental image regarding city branding plans. Moreover, According to the correlation between components, the highest relationship was between mental image and landscape (0.66).