Place Marketing Bucharest

Omar Mohammed

7/13/2015

Place marketing Bucharest

     Place marketing is the process by which a city promotes itself in order to attract business, tourism or any other economic activity. I will discuss in this paper how the city of Bucharest, the capital of Romania, is engaging in Place Marketing, how it promotes itself globally and what’s unique about Bucharest. I will also discuss how some current policies and issues in the city strain these marketing efforts.

     Bucharest is the Capital city of Romania, which is a country in Eastern Europe, Bucharest is becoming a tourist destination because of its rich history and relatively well preserved medieval heritage in addition to relatively low prices. The city’s official website (romaniatourism.com) mentions the high life in Bucharest and calls it “little Paris”

The city does have glamour and a lively night life scene. People in Bucharest love fashion and dressing up. All this is visible, but for the reader of the website it might seem like Bucharest is indeed a mini Paris, however, this is not true even though some elements of a charming fashion-oriented historical city exists in Bucharest, there are serious issues not talked about in the site. Such as roads quality and infrastructure. Stray dogs and public health or the dangerous driving conditions.

     One of the most talked about issues in Bucharest is road quality the fact that roads are in terrible condition. Some tourists mentioned how really big and how really deep the holes on the roads were “and look out for holes in the road, which can be alarmingly big. So remember to look down when walking! But don’t forget to look up to see some of the beautiful old buildings. It takes a little practice to look up and down at the same time, but your feet and shoes will be happy.” (www.romania-insider, Eleonore of Schaumburg-Lippe) So infrastructure is not up to standards and this can be a shock to a visitor used to clean smooth roads especially in if they were from western Europe or North America where a great deal of attention is payed to infrastructure.

Romanians do have taste in fashion but their driving habits are chaotic and flat out dangerous. The government did put signs but people just don’t follow them it seems to be more a problem with both awareness and respect for the law and enforcement of those laws by authorities.

     Another issue that stands out a lot internationally in this city is the stray dog’s issue there have been many cases of injuries caused by dog bites and some deaths. most of which have been senior citizens and children. Those incidents occur regularly and some of them generate national and international outcries. In 2012 alone, 16,192 people were bitten by dogs in Bucharest. Out of these, 3,300 were children (Wikipedia).  At least three deaths have occurred in Bucharest as a result of dog packs biting citizens. Those who died were either senior members of society or children.