Evaluating the Effects of Place-Marketing Campaigns on Interregional Migration in Sweden

Abstract

During the last few years, Swedish municipalities have become increasingly engaged in competition to attract in-migrants. An important element of these efforts has been the use of place-marketing campaigns and promotion. Very little is known, however, about these attempts in terms of the number of municipalities involved, economic efforts, ways of marketing, target groups, etc. Furthermore, and more importantly, as for place-marketing studies in general, there have been few attempts at evaluation. The author's purpose is to provide an overview and to evaluate the effects of place-marketing efforts made by municipalities in Sweden to attract in-migrants. The empirical material is based largely on survey responses from 220 municipalities, and provides data for a general overview as well as for the evaluative approaches employed in the study. Among other findings, the results suggest that, although this kind of marketing has definitely become more important over the last few years, there is little evidence of any significant effects on interregional migration flows.