Chiara Mauri

The Three Hs: Hotels, Hospitality and Holidays: Strategies for Successful Place Brands in the Post-Pandemic "New Normal" examines how place branding is being fundamentally reshaped in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. As global tourism, hospitality, and holiday industries confront disrupted mobility, accelerated digitalisation, heightened sustainability pressures, and shifting consumer expectations, destinations are increasingly required to rebuild trust, resilience, and authenticity in an uncertain and volatile environment. Conceptualising hotels, hospitality services, and holiday destinations as the interconnected "Three Hs", this book positions place branding as an integrative, multi-stakeholder discipline that extends beyond traditional marketing communication. It explores how territorial identity, cultural narratives, digital technologies, and strategic governance interact to shape competitive and sustainable place brands in the post-pandemic "new normal". Bringing together leading international scholars and practitioners, the volume offers theoretically grounded and empirically informed insights into how destinations respond to crises, manage their reputations, and co-create value with residents, visitors, and institutional stakeholders. The book addresses critical contemporary themes, including digital transformation, artificial intelligence, smart destinations, sustainability integration, stakeholder engagement, authenticity, and crisis resilience. Structured across five interconnected sections, it moves from foundational perspectives on place identity and cultural meaning, through technological and digital innovations, to strategic marketing and management approaches, global comparative case studies, and future-oriented research agendas. Together, these perspectives highlight how innovation, technology, sustainability, and storytelling are redefining competitive advantage across diverse geographic and cultural contexts. Designed for both academic and professional audiences, this volume provides rigorous frameworks, global case evidence, and practical insights for researchers, graduate students, destination marketers, hospitality executives, policymakers, and urban planners. By combining conceptual depth with applied relevance, The Three Hs offers timely guidance for building resilient, ethical, and technologically enabled place brands in the evolving global tourism and hospitality landscape.

Many European cities have an industrial heritage rooted in their very origins, having been founded around one or more key industries. Manchester grew around cotton, the Ruhr region around coal and steel, and Turin around the automotive sector — all emblematic examples. When these industries enter a prolonged decline, the cities often lose part of their appeal and are forced to seek new paths for development. This chapter aims to explore the strategies needed to complement the original industrial identity of the place brand with associations linked to the tourist experience.

Recent research has frequently remarked the increased crowding of store shelves driven by grocery manufacturers' product expansion strategies. However, many new products are imitations, copycats, and lookalikes of leading brands, adding further complexity to consumer choice decisions. The high degree of similarity between products not only contributes to consumers' information overload but also leads to increased brand confusion. This paper examines the academic debate on brand confusion through a systematic literature network analysis and introduces MIRROR, a thematic framework structured around six dominant perspectives that have shaped the understanding of this phenomenon: M for Mimicry, I for Imitation strategies, R for Reactions, R for Replication, O for Overall imitation effects, R for Retail price confusion. The acronym MIRROR also metaphorically reflects the competitive dynamics among products that adopt imitation strategies to capture consumer attention and drive purchase decisions.

Le nuove tecnologie digitali stanno rivoluzionando il settore del commercio al dettaglio, con un impatto sulle relazioni tra clienti e fornitori che coinvolge l'intera filiera. L'analisi proposta, centrata sulle dinamiche in atto nel comparto dei beni di largo consumo confezionati e a frequente riacquisto, delinea un quadro molto puntuale delle innovazioni digitali nei diversi ambiti della produzione, della distribuzione e della customer experience. La gestione di big data condivisa tra produttore e distributore, la diffusione di app dedicate all'interazione tra cliente e luogo d'acquisto, sia esso fisico o digitale, fi no alla recente introduzione di esempi di design thinking sul punto vendita rappresentano un panorama fortemente innovativo, anche se ancora perfettibile. Denominatore comune di un'interazione tecnologica virtuosa tra produttore, distributore, luogo d'acquisto e cliente è infatti la percezione di un valore aggiunto da parte di ogni soggetto coinvolto; si tratti di un incremento delle vendite, di risparmio di tempo da parte di chi compra, di una gestione più efficace di scorte e prodotti o di un'esperienza di acquisto più piacevole e vantaggiosa. Il risultato finale deve essere smart per tutti. Attraverso gli esempi di casi aziendali, nazionali e internazionali, protagonisti attivi della rivoluzione nella filiera grocery, il lettore può identificare le tendenze più significative dell'evoluzione del settore.