| Summary: | This paper reviews the academic and practitioner literature on urban destination marketing, suggesting that it contains within it a dominant paradigm which the author characterises as 'the theory of marketing competitive advantage'. As such, this theory requires towns and cities to differentiate themselves through the provision of unique products, based on which they subsequently undertake branding, market positioning, distribution and other activities through bespoke destination marketing organisations (DMOs). Practice is then contrasted with theory by reference to a discordant strad of the literature as well as the actual destination marketing currently being undertaken in 60 European towns and cities. The theory of marketing competitive advantage is shown to be an ideal which rarely translates into practice. Irrespective of whether or not a town or city possesses competitive advantage, DMO destination marketing gravitates almost inexorably towards a 'marketing of everything'. Such an approach, in turn, reduces to a bland and monolithic 'theming of urban sameness', all of which is diametrically opposite to what one would expect to be the case as per the theory of marketing competitive advantage. The author contends that this gap between theory and practice matters, necessitating a rethinking of how academics and practitioners should in future seek to explain or otherwise account for urban destination marketing.
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