Place Branding and Public Diplomacy

Place Branding and Public Diplomacy is published by Springer Nature and is in Zone 4 of Management in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research, Public Relations and Crisis Communication and Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification, together about 40.8% of its articles. Its main subfields are Sociology and Political Science. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)

Place Branding and Public Diplomacy is a pioneering journal and the first to concentrate on this fast-growing field. Its scope and reach is global and culturally unbiased. Its primary objective is to broaden the understanding of the nature, purposes and benefits of both place branding and public diplomacy and to demonstrate how place branding and public diplomacy strategies are implemented in practice. Place branding is the practice of applying brand strategy and other techniques and disciplines - some deriving from commercial practice, others newly developed - to the economic, social, political and cultural development of cities, regions and countries. Public diplomacy is the process by which an international actor – often but not exclusively a country – conducts foreign policy by engaging a foreign public. Public Diplomacy and Place Branding are not synonyms but their overlaps are sufficient to justify a journal which considers both activities in their own right and at their point of convergence. Both Place Branding and Public Diplomacy are significantly, but not exclusively, concerned with reputation management. To date the ways in which countries, cities and regions manage their reputations and influence external 'audiences' - or fail to do so - have been discussed in a fragmented way across a range of disciplines: from political philosophy to public relations, by way of destination marketing, economics, social and cultural policy, international relations, public affairs, brand strategy, tourism promotion, inward investment promotion and export branding. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy provides a comprehensive, coherent forum with which to drive the subject forward by publishing authoritative, peer-reviewed articles as well as news, debates, interviews, literature reviews, case studies and special features. It provides an international forum where practitioners, academic researchers, consultants, students, governments and the wider public can debate these issues and learn about best practice. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy is a publication which is relevant to the needs of place branding practitioners, Public Diplomats, policy makers, and researchers. It was designed first and foremost as a review that would attract submissions and be read by both practitioners and researchers. It provides researchers as well as ministries, governments, civil servants, agencies, and consultants with the latest thinking and most valuable lessons on how places c

From the journal's Aims & Scope

Research area (LetPub): HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM

Editorial board by country: 1 in mainland China (about 2%); most named United States 11, United Kingdom 7, Spain 3, Italy 2, Canada 2 (44 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website · 2026-09-29

CAS Journal Ranking

Database indexing

ESCIScopusLetPub

International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub

Indexing the journal's website claims

Google Scholar, EBSCO, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, Baidu, Naver, OCLC, Portico, CLOCKSSPublisher website

As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.

Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.

Impact

Impact factor (publisher) 2025

1.9Publisher website · 2026-09-29

5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025

2.4Publisher website · 2026-09-29

CiteScore 2026-06

5.4LetPub · 2026-09-13

SJR 2026-06

0.54LetPub · 2026-09-13

SNIP 2026-06

1.17LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

55OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

i10-index

368OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

2-year mean citedness

2.59OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

Self-citation rate

21.1%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Share of gold OA articles

34.91%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Volume

Articles per year

27LetPub · 2026-09-13

Downloads per year (publisher) 2025

310,900Publisher website · 2026-09-29

Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.

Other sources

Submission to first decision

11 daysPublisher website · 2026-09-29

Peer review

Double anonymous peer reviewPublisher website

Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.

A hybrid journal charges the APC only when the author chooses open access; publishing under the subscription model is usually free.

The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.

Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.

Publisher

Springer Nature

Frequency

4 issues per year

ISSN

1751-8040

Electronic ISSN

1751-8059

Latest issue on the website

Volume 22, Issue 3 (September 2026)

Official links

• Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
• Submission system ↗Publisher website
• Author guidelines ↗LetPub
• Special issues ↗Publisher website