Communication-centered place branding: needs analysis for sustainable destination strategies in Romania

This paper investigates the pressing need for a communication-centered approach to place branding in Romania, where mass tourism, fragmented governance, and cultural pressures demand sustainable strategies. The objectives are to identify how community identity, narrative co-creation, and digital mediation can be integrated into branding processes and to specify the conditions under which communication theory provides stronger explanatory and policy value than traditional marketing frameworks. Prior work on destination branding has privileged symbolic visibility and consumer perceptions, yet remains under-specified with respect to discursive formation, resident agency, and digital platform governance. Building on systematic reviews across communication, tourism, and cultural studies, the study formulates three guiding research questions: (1) How are communication processes conceptualized and operationalized in destination branding across symbolic, cognitive, and experiential approaches? (2) To what extent do digital platforms reshape resident-visitor narratives and brand legitimacy under conditions of overtourism? The approach applies a mixed-methods design, four interviews, digital presence analysis, and participatory observation, anchored in a PRISMA-based systematic literature review. Initial results highlight persistent gaps: residents are marginally integrated into narrative construction; sustainability rhetoric diverges from lived community experience; and imported measurement tools lack cultural validity. The implications extend to academics who require theoretically grounded constructs, practitioners who must navigate platform-mediated visibility, and policymakers who seek legitimacy through participatory communication rather than promotional campaigns. The value of this research lies in reframing place branding as a communicative system with feedback loops between institutions, communities, and digital media, offering an original contribution to both theory and applied governance in underrepresented regions of Europe.