Explanation of urban branding components with an emphasis on its economic aspects, case study: Mashhad metropolis

One of the strategies of urban management in order to advance in the competitive world is planning to achieve sustainable urban branding for the city, which in addition to introducing the image of the city, is able to attract audiences. Tourism is the most important factor in achieving the economic benefits of urban branding. The metropolis of Mashhad is one of the goals of urban tourism with pilgrimage and religious tourism throughout the country, and it is called as the spiritual capital of the country. This city is the first destination of domestic tourism trips. The purpose of this study is to investigate urban branding components in Mashhad metropolitan with emphasis on tourism in order to achieve its economic goals. To the purpose, firstly, the components and indexes of urban branding with an emphasis on the economic dimension were identified and by using the views of 200citizens, pilgrims and experts were evaluated. Then, by applying statistical analyzes (analysis test and Friedman nonparametric test), has been studied and prioritized in Mashhad metropolis. The results show that among the six components of this research, the unique features of city have the highest score and international standing of the city has the lowest score. this type of research is called analytical- descriptive.