People and partnerships: marketing urban retailing

This article investigates the interaction between urban place marketing actors with specific reference to marketing urban areas as shopping destinations – town centre managers, shopping centre managers, local authority economic development managers and marketing managers and tourism promotion managers. It reports the results of a survey of these actors in the top 173 urban shopping destinations in the UK. It identifies those actors with prime responsibility for marketing urban retail provision (i.e. town centre managers and shopping centre managers), the nature of their collaboration (via formal, informal, and initiative‐specific interaction), and the factors impelling interaction (i.e. recognition of the linkages between the activities of different organisations, ensuring wider representation of organisational interests and the financial imperative). With the recent publication of Draft PPS6 and its increased focus on the strategic development of smaller centres, the implications for the marketing/promotion of such centres are addressed in detail.