Sustainable Place Branding and Visitors’ Responses: A Systematic Literature Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article presents an important parameter of sustainable place branding. The introduction and literature review are also interesting. More specifically, the introduction fully analyzes the aims of the article as well as the gap it seeks to fill. At the same time, the literature review documents the main arguments related to the article using many bibliographic references.

However, the methodology followed is not fully analyzed. Keywords used are analyzed but, these keywords are very general in terms of their meanings. In this way, there is a big research gap.

Also, the selection criteria of the articles which were selected for the study are not fully clarified. While the application of these criteria leads to the final selection of a limited number of articles. In this way, the research results are not very strong. The way the results are extracted, and the results presented are detailed, but the small number of articles used does not make them strong.

In a more general context, although the idea of ​​the article and its methodology are interesting, the way they are implemented does not lead to strong research results.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, please find the comments and actions in the document attached. Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I'm thankful for the opportunity to evaluate and provide feedback on the paper titled "Sustainable place branding and visitors’ responses: a systematic literature review". The paper addresses an interesting and well researched theme in the recent period about the implications of sustainable place branding actions performed to better promote different destinations and generate influence on visitors' responses.

This article presents a novel perspective, as “the study aims to fill the gap through an extensive systematic literature review (SLR) by shedding light on the trilateral relationship among branding, sustainability, and social responsibility for destinations”, as the authors underline.

The findings are presented effectively, with integration of visuals and text contributing to the coherence of the narrative. The figures are very effective in delivering the results of the research undertaken. The inclusion of pertinent figures and tables enriches the presentation of research findings, complementing the textual explanations.

However, there are several observations that deserve attention and revision in subsequent drafts of the manuscript.

- specify the correct form of the paper, because it was defined as Type of manuscript: Systematic Review in MDPI system, but the pdf file uses the title: Type of the Paper (Article).

- the concepts of place branding, place marketing, destination branding, destination marketing should be consistently defined and used in Title, Abstract, Introduction and Literature Review sections, some inadequate phases are used across the paper.

- various academic resources are used as primary references for defining the above concepts, but little attention is given to the ones published in the main international scientific stream on the topic of place branding and destination branding that over the years have helped to establish (relative) generally accepted issues. Use refences from Anholt, Govers & Go, Kotler & Gertner, Fan, Briciu, Dinnie, Florek, Kotler.

- please increase the quality and font for Figure 6 to add to the readability factor of the figure.

- the undefined table from page 11 should be properly formatted.

- the references should be updated to the journal’s recommendations, so all of them are in line with the mandatory guidelines.

not the case, minor observations

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, please find the comments and actions in the document attached. Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

#1. it is recommended that the authors review the existing literature on the relationship between sustainability and place branding in the literature review section and highlight the theoretical contribution of this study by comparing it with it.

#2. The theoretical contribution section is not well written. It is recommended that the authors read and dialog with previous related questions to highlight the areas in which this study makes theoretical contributions to the literature. 

#3. the section on future research directions needs to specify what topics and directions future research will include based on the findings of this study.

#4. the practice implications need to be more specific and actionable for destination managers to benefit from.

#5. summarizing and presenting the findings in a table does not seem to be a good way to do this and the authors should discuss the findings of this study in more detail.

#figure 6. the author needs to explain what the different colors mean.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, please find the comments and actions in the document attached. Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review the revised version of the paper “Sustainable place branding and visitors’ responses: a systematic literature review”.     

The authors responded and explained with reasonable arguments and corrected all the remarks and observations highlighted in the previous review and the results suggest a more consistent, publishable and logical text.

Even more, the authors enhanced the depth and detail of analysis and literature review of the concepts of place branding/ place marketing, destination branding/ destination marketing and updated the references to the journal’s recommendations.

I consider that the paper is publishable after a final check from the authors.  

not the case for this new version of the paper