Specialised Training for Place Branding & Marketing
Looking for a place branding course that blends strategy with hands-on learning? Equip your rising stars with the skills, tools and confidence to navigate the unique challenges that come with branding and promoting places.
In this live, interactive training program, a small group of emerging leaders will have the opportunity to learn from expert-led sessions, collaborate with international peers, ask questions, and receive feedback on practical assignments.
Learn more about the program below and contact our team with any questions.
WHO’S IT FOR?
The CNP Accelerator training is designed for early to mid-career professionals working within:
Nation, region, and city brand teams
Destination management and marketing organisations
Economic development teams
Investment promotion agencies
Whether your organisation’s goals are focused on tourism, economic development, investment promotion, talent attraction or broader place growth, this course will help equip you to build, execute, and support your place brand’s strategy.
SOME TESTIMONIALS FROM RECENT COURSE GRADUATES
"The CNP Accelerator course was fantastic! I've worked in marketing for years, but never had the opportunity to study place marketing before. This sharpened my marketing skills and honed my understanding of how to best brand my region." | |
"I was amazed and impressed by the scope and depth of the place branding content that was covered in 6 sessions. Each session left you with clear actionable takeaways to use. The team leading each session had incredible knowledge and expertise that was engaging. I highly recommend taking this course." | |
"This course was exactly what I needed! A perfect blend of theory and practice, it was informative, thought-provoking, and always enjoyable. I would recommend to anyone wanting to build their knowledge and skills in place branding." | |
HOW WILL YOU LEARN?
This online place branding course combines expert instruction, peer learning, and practical application:
Course Structure:
Six live two-hour online sessions. Held over six weeks
Practical assignments and tailored feedback
Small group learning (max of 15 students per course)
Online collaboration with colleagues from around the world
Earn a certificate of completion upon finishing the course
WHAT TOPICS WILL BE COVERED?
 Fundamentals of place brandingEstablish a strong foundation in place branding. This module introduces key principles and challenges, helping you build effective, real-world strategies. |  Place positioning and identityDefine your place’s identity, align around a core idea, and build on branding strategies to fuel both tourism marketing and economic development success. |
 Working with stakeholdersEngaging and identifying stakeholders to amplify your work. Reviewing stakeholder engagement strategies and case studies from across place branding. |  Place marketing IUnderstanding place marketing vs. place branding. Defining and reaching your audiences. Mapping decision journeys across travel, relocation, and investment decision-making. |
| Place marketing II Setting measurable KPIs for place marketing. Using earned and paid strategies. Leveraging emerging technologies like AI and fuelling the creative process. |  Be the expert clientIdentifying external needs for your place brand. Writing RFPs and assessing proposals to attract the best partners and providers to support your team. |
2025 COURSE DATES:
3rd June - 8th July 2025
Every Tuesday at:
EDT 4pm / PDT 1pm / BST 9pm / AEST + 1 day, 6am / NZST + 1 day, 8am
4th November - 9th December 2025
Every Tuesday at:
EST 9am / MST 7am / GMT 2pm / CEST 3pm
WHAT WILL IT COST?
£995 per person.
Includes: 12 hours of real-time online training, all course materials, personalised feedback on six assignments, and digital certificate of completion.
If you have any questions, you can contact the team here.
If you want to show your boss this training opportunity, download the PDF here.
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Clare is the Founder and Director of City Nation Place, the global forum for the people and stories behind places.
City Nation Place creates connections and shares best practice between country brands, regional brands, and city brands around the world through articles, interviews, surveys, white papers, the advisory group network, and conferences.
Clare’s interest in the complex area of place branding was sparked whilst working on a series of Nation Branding Masterclass events, led by Simon Anholt, one of the first thought-leaders to speak about and promote the concept of place branding. Having listened to Simon address audiences in Accra, Delhi, Dubai, London and Singapore on how policy, governance, and symbolic actions need to combine with branding and marketing to create a competitive identity and drive economic growth, she continued to follow the growth in this sector.
Clare launched the first City Nation Place Global conference in London in 2015. CityNationPlace.com has been steadily building followers and in 2017, the first City Nation Place Americas conference was launched. In 2018 City Nation Place Asia Pacific took place in Singapore, and 2019 saw the first City Nation Place UK, specifically for towns, cities and regions across the UK, and the launch of the first City Nation Place LatAm & Caribbean event.
Clare manages the small team at City Nation Place alongside providing event consultancy and management for a number of clients in the publishing and trade association sector, including running the World Media Awards for the World Media Group and event consultancy for the UK Association for Online Publishers.
Dr Natasha Grand Norman is the Director of Institute for Identity (INSTID), which she co-founded in London in 2012. She is a proponent of the people-focused approach to place branding that upholds place’s way of life rather than infrastructure. Trained in national identity (a Lord Dahrendorf Scholar at LSE), Natasha leads INSTID’s qualitative research and speaks at conferences and in the media from the anthropological angle of the place branding field. She has been both a recipient and a judge at City Nation Place awards, and is a longstanding member of The Place Brand Observer Expert panel. Natasha has run projects across 3 continents with the combined population of 20+ million people.
Mary is an expert in place marketing and branding with a wealth of experience working with destinations and place-associated organisation such as airlines, airports and hospitality across Bahrain, the city and county of Limerick, Oman, Qatar, the UK, Slovenia, Croatia and more. She is experienced at working in complex stakeholder environments and within governments across Tourism, FDI, travel, hospitality, and talent attraction. Mary’s background is integrated and she support places with everything from: brand strategy and identify; full funnel advertising and lead generation campaigns; marketing consultancy and culture change. Mary was proud to be a judge of the prestigious National Business Awards, City Nation Place Awards and the World Media Awards.