Promoting The City Of Khabarovsk: Content Analysis Of Municipal Programs

Abstract

The article reveals the results of a research of the activities of the municipality to promote the city of Khabarovsk. The study was based on a few program documents developed by municipal authorities in the period from 2009 to 2020. Content analysis used as a method of the research allowed to identify the ratio of promotion tools, including public relations (PR), advertising, branding, direct marketing, and sales promotion. In addition, the main activities, and the target groups to which they are directed were highlighted: locals, visitors, and enterprises of the city, as well as economic entities, authorities, and media of other regions. With the help of meaningful analysis, key problems in the activities of the municipality were identified. Such an analysis was carried out for the first time and made it possible to determine the main directions for improving the activities of city authorities in the field of territorial marketing.

Keywords: Promotion, territorial marketing, target group

Introduction

The formation of relations between the territory and the external environment is carried out through the implementation of mutually beneficial programs aimed at strengthening the socio-economic welfare of the population (Anokhin & Anokhin, 2021). Territory promotion is one of the determining factors of its successful development. However, when studying the experience of territories’ promotion in Russia, as well as analysing information sources, it can be stated that this activity is scattered, and the scientific base is reduced to the consideration of individual promotion tools (Kirianova, 2016; Kotler et al., 2004; Pankrukhin, 2006). Also, there is no uniform classification of tools for territory promotion, which causes difficulties in researching this topic. In addition, when developing various territorial programs, authorities do not take into consideration target groups, for which these programs are directed. This can cause difficulties in assessing the effectiveness of the programs. The totality of these problems allows us to evaluate the relevance of the territory promotion research.

In addition, there is a close relationship between the strategic planning process and ensuring sustainable development of countries, regions, and local areas (Sorokin et al., 2017). In modern conditions, most regions of Russia have significant reserves for the implementation of their socio-economic potential (Gagarina et al., 2017).

Problem Statement

Khabarovsk is one of the leading cities of the Russian Far East and Russian Federation concerning the activity of regional authorities in the field of territorial marketing. The regulatory framework is constantly being improved; various targeted programs are being adopted. However, the potential of the city is used, in our opinion, less than half for a few reasons:

1) The activities of the municipal administration in the field of promotion are fragmentary and impulsive. Activity occurs only on certain dates tied to certain events and certain geographical points.

2) For the administration of the city of Khabarovsk, the problem of promoting the city is not paramount. Most likely, therefore activities in this area are fragmentary.

3) Marketing activities are poorly conducted both among the local population and among other target groups. These resources should be modern and interactive, not formalized. The subject area of this study consists of tools for promoting the territory.

Research Questions

The key research questions of the study are the following: to identify activities aimed at promoting the city of Khabarovsk; to determine the structure of tools to promote the city; to determine the direction of promotion activities to target groups; to identify problems in promotion activities.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose is to analyse the activities in the promotion of the city of Khabarovsk among various target groups based on program documents. The basis for the study was made up of various documents (programs, strategies) adopted in Khabarovsk for the period from 2009 to 2020.

Research Methods

Content analysis is used as a basic method. The criteria for content analysis were the purpose of the event; target group (local population, enterprises of the city, visitors to the territory (including tourists), representatives of the authorities of other territories, economic entities of other territories, media of other territories); promotion tool to which the event belongs (advertising, public relations (PR), personal sales and direct marketing, sales promotion, branding).

Findings

By summarizing and systematizing the data obtained because of the content analysis of the Khabarovsk development programs, we will determine the problems and features of the city's promotion.

During the content analysis, it was found out that for the period from 2009 to 2020, 112 events were planned in the development programs of the city of Khabarovsk to promote the territory among various target groups. The executor of these activities is municipal and regional authorities. The study revealed extremely uneven use of promotion tools.

The predominance of PR tools is associated with the expansion of twinning relations with the cities in Asia, and with the use of information support for innovative and investment projects. However, such an imbalance in the use of promotion tools is not optimal, therefore, it can lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of activities to promote the whole territory. We should also point out the low involvement of branding as a promotion tool. Note that the municipal authorities periodically raise this issue, announcing competitions for creating the city's brand. The last time the competition for the visual component design of the Khabarovsk brand was held in 2016. And then the expert commission could not choose any of the proposed options for the brand. This situation is also not optimal, because the brand is the basis for the territory promotion.

The analysis shows that the activities to promote the territory are aimed, mainly, at the business community: the formation of a favourable climate for doing business and investment activities, as well as the search for external economic partners. It should not be forgotten that territorial competition and cooperation of territories do not exclude, but complement each other, which entails the emergence and development of competitive cooperation (Vazhenina & Vazhenin, 2020).

During the content analysis of the listed program documents, the main groups of tools aimed at promoting the city of Khabarovsk were identified.

1. When analysing the municipal program "Expansion of regional, federal and international relations of the city district "City of Khabarovsk" for 2014-2020"(Munitsipal’naya..., 2020b), 28 measures aimed at promoting the territory were identified. We have researched the activities presented in this program and identified the areas they are aimed at. 44% of target events are aimed at the development of cooperation between Khabarovsk and other Russian and foreign cities. 23% are focused on attracting foreign tourists to Khabarovsk. 20%of target events are concentrated on increasing the profit of the local companies involved in tourist servicing. 9% are focused on increasing the number of Khabarovsk residents, participating in the implementation of international events. Formation of conditions for reception of foreign visitors and Development of competition in tourism and service – these target events received 3% each.

The executors of all events are various structures of the city administration. Slightly less than half of the activities (42.8%) are aimed at several target groups at once. Also, we noticed that most of the events are aimed at external subjects of promotion: representatives of the other territories’ authorities, the territory visitors and economic entities of other territories, which corresponds to the goal of the program - the expansion of regional, federal and international relations of the Khabarovsk city.

2. Content analysis of «Strategic plan for sustainable development of the Khabarovsk city» (Strategicheskiy.., 2020), pointed out 23 measures aimed at promoting the city of Khabarovsk. The executors of all activities are the municipal authorities. About 60% of the activities of this program are aimed at several target groups at the same time. Unlike the previous program, the events are evenly distributed among different target groups: the local population, territory visitors and business representatives (economic entities of other territories and local enterprises). We should also note that in the activities to promote business, the priority group is the economic entities of other territories. In turn, the number of promotion activities among the local population significantly exceeds the number of promotion activities among territory visitors.

Table 1 presents the ratio of target events, included in the analysed programme.

As we can see the activities of this program are aimed at achieving various goals, the main of which are the development of innovation and attracting investment, as well as the formation of a healthy, patriotic population. We should also point out measures to create an accessible environment for people with disabilities since this type of event is a global trend and has a positive effect on the image of the territory.

Analysing the ratio of promotion tools used in the Strategic plan, we see the predominance of PR group tools. We should also mark the lack of tools "personal sales and direct marketing". However, we note the focus of the program on innovation and on providing an accessible environment.

3. The program "Development of medium and small-sized businesses in Khabarovsk for 2014-2020" (Dolgosrochnaya..., 2020b), contains 21 events for territory promotion. The executors of all events are the municipal authorities of the city.

The largest number of activities are aimed at territory promoting among the city enterprises, and it corresponds to the Program goal. And less than 20% of activities are aimed simultaneously at several target groups from among medium and small-sized businesses.

Thus, the activities of this program are aimed to promote the city as a favourable territory for different sized businesses, through the fulfilment of measures in five main directions presented in Table 2. This program uses an almost equal ratio of sales promotion and public relations tools, advertising and personal sales and direct marketing are also presented, but there are no branding activities.

4. While analysing the program "Development of innovation activities in Khabarovsk for 2009-2012 and up to 2020" (Dolgosrochnaya.., 2020a), we identified 10 measures of territory promotion. The executors of all events are the municipal authorities of the city of Khabarovsk.

Let’s identify the areas they are concentrated on. Intensification of demand for innovative developments – 27%; financial support of innovation activity– 18%; information support of innovative activity– 46%; legal support of innovative activity – 9%. Measures to promote the territory are aimed at two target groups: enterprises of the city and economic entities of other territories. At the same time, 70% of activities are aimed simultaneously at both target groups. Thus, this program does not aim at representatives of the authorities and the media of other territories, as well as city visitors and residents.

This reflects the attitude of the authorities to innovation as a direction of the economy that does not include the sphere of services and communications and does not need to be supported by diplomatic relations. The priority areas of innovations development available today in Russia do not consider the specifics of each region of the country, although they significantly differ from each other. It follows from this that there is not and cannot be a single universal strategy for innovative development applicable to all constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Thus, the problem of differentiating innovative development strategies for Russian regions is very important. It acquires relevance today, due to the global economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic (Sukhovey & Golova, 2020).

We can conclude that the activities of this program are aimed at creating the basis for the promotion of Khabarovsk as an innovation centre. But, since the duration of this program is more than 10 years, the preparation period of the base for the innovation activities in Khabarovsk seems unreasonably prolonged. The ratio of promotion tools used in this program shows the predominance of "public relations" tools.

5. The analysis of the municipal program "Developing the investment attractiveness of Khabarovsk"(Munitsipal’naya..., 2020a) made it possible to identify 15 measures for territory promotion. The executors of all events are the municipality of Khabarovsk. 47% of activities are focused on Information support of investment projects. 33% are concentrated on Stimulating investment attraction into the urban economy sectors.13% of activities are aimed at improving the efficiency and sustainability of investment activities. And only 7% are focused on the creation of a regulatory framework for investment activities. The analysis shows that this program, as well as the one discussed above, also assumes an impact on the authorities and the media of other territories. Even though the promotion activities in this program, as well as in the previous one, are aimed at forming the basis for the investment sphere of activity, the focus falls on actions for the direct promotion of projects.

We can conclude that the public relations tools also predominate in this program. In addition, we note that promotion activities and tools used are traditional, which, in turn, does not contribute to raising the city investment attractiveness.

6. The analysis of the program "Development of inbound and domestic tourism in the Khabarovsk Territory (2013-2020)"(Gosudarstvennaya..., 2020), let us identify 13 measures to promote the territory. The executors of the events are the regional and municipal authorities. Note that this is the only program of the regional level selected for analysis. This is because most of its activities cover the city and not the region.

We see here that most of the promotion activities are aimed at the city enterprises. At the same time, about 80% are aimed at several target groups at once. As for activity content, 31% are focused on the Formation of a positive image of the territory as an international tourism centre in the Far East. 23% are aimed at Information support for territorial tourism products. Creation of a tourism cluster and increasing the level of professional training of tourism specialists have got 15% each. And 8% of activities are concentrated on financial support for the tourism industry, as well Stimulating to improve the quality of services among the tourism enterprises (also 8%). We can resume the multidirectional measures to promote the territory of the city of Khabarovsk as a tourist destination. The program for tourism development is dominated by the public relations tools, as well as other analysed programs. At the same time, all other tools are also presented, except for branding.

Let's summarize the data for all documents in the context of promotion tools (Table 3).

It’s also interesting to assess the content of the programme according to the target groups, these documents are directed on. Table 4 shows the ratio of the documents and target groups.

To understand the structure of the tools, used in various programs, we will correlate them with each other. PR tools account for 59% (i.e. 66 events, mentioned in the Programs); Sales promotion have got 19% (i.e.21 events); Advertisement received 11% (12 events); Personal sales and direct marketing account for 9% (10 events) and Branding have got only 2% (3 events). Thus, we may summarize the number of activities for each target group. It should be considered that many activities are aimed at more than one target group. 62 events from all the programs are aimed at city enterprises. 45 events are focused on economic entities of other regions. 25 activities are for the locals. 23 are aimed at visitors to the territory (including tourists). 17 events are focused on authorities of other regions, and only 10 activities are aimed at other regions media.

Conclusion

The goal of our study was to research the activities to promote the city of Khabarovsk based on program documents among various target groups. The practical significance of the research consists in identifying problems in the promotion and finding ways to eliminate them. The analysis revealed that:

• the main activities in this direction are: promotion of the city as a political, economic and cultural centre of the Far East; development of the key areas of economic activity in Russia - innovations and investments; supporting the tourism enterprises and the creation of an attractive destination image; formation of a healthy and patriotic society, as well as informational and material support for the business community;
• the main problems are the uneven structure of promotion, the predominance of the "public relations" tools over the tools of other groups; poor usage of the "branding" tools.
• the predominance of traditional approaches to promotion with an almost complete absence of innovative promotion tools: event marketing, neuromarketing, integrated SMM promotion, product placement and others.
• only 70% of the planned activities were implemented by the beginning of 2021; Note that monitoring the implementation of the declared programs is a difficult task, since the real indicators of the implementation are practically not presented in the open press, or there are only indirect sources.
• weak fulfilment of specific calculated indicators, lack of responsibility measures for non-implementation of strategic measures.
• absence of a feedback mechanism in strategic documents, lack of analysis of practical actions taken to implement measures, indicating specific examples, which show real work and effect for the community, as opposed to reporting actions. The tasks of effective municipal governance highlight the need for accurate and timely information on the effectiveness of achieving the goals of the current policy (Kotov, 2020).

Thus, for effective activities to promote the city, it is necessary to use a balanced set of tools and the inclusion of innovative components. The most important area of ​​activity here should be the creation of a brand aimed at various target groups, the cultivation of a brand in an urban environment. Events aimed at introducing a brand into the urban environment, as well as creating a positive image of the brand and the city, represent a set of actions that make the brand promoted unique. Also, it’s extremely important to support the development of the city's media and use innovative promotion tools: conducting flash mobs, SMM, viral and event marketing, etc. Evaluation of effectiveness should depend on the goal achievement of each of the activities. The general evaluation criteria are the brand awareness and the attitude of target groups of promotion towards it.

Close relationships with existing city development projects will allow these tasks to be accomplished with minimal use of additional funds.

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