The importance of territoriality in the Place Branding process

Abstract

The years of economic crisis and administrative reform have caused sharp reduction of social care costs towards local authorities which has limited their developmental capabilities and, on the other hand, social benefits. The study focuses on Care provision for a population over 60 as an example, but the model is applied in all areas of Health Tourism development and provision from Municipalities which own such resources. The process of economic adjustment of 11 out of 18 countries of the Eurozone has limited the means of municipalities, increasing their income. The research question is how to produce a design model for Local Authorities with an inverse availability of resources and budget to the growing needs of elderly care in a context of population cohesiveness and aging - especially in remote, rural, coastal, mountain and border regions where accessibility is an issue for the population. Health Tourism resource-based development at the local level highlights the added value of territory through the territoriality process and makes the region's resources the center of the branding strategy of their site. A methodology will be presented that demonstrates that territoriality brings real income for the local areas with resource based development, branding and marketing of the site and investment planning. An innovative environment must come from a territorial entity (Aydalot, 1986). After that, the innovative organizational and territorial structure leads to a learning dynamic. In other words, it is the creation of an ecosystem in a territory where its stakeholders, in a coordinated way, will manage sustainable sector development of heatlh tourism, specially in areas where the primary resource is Thermalism springs, muds, waters etc to shape a very particular Product in that sense.