Marketing of place to attract and retain population in regional Australia

In Australia, as in many other developed countries, regional and rural areas are suffering from an overall decline in population with a specific loss of young adults (16-30 year olds). A decline in population, linked with the Australia-wide problems of ageing populations and diminishing birth rates, is leading to a social and economic decline in many regional cities and towns that threatens their long-term sustainability due to the lack of skilled workers and professionals. Although the loss of population from regional and rural areas has the potential to affect the national economy, it has mainly fallen to local government to combat the problem. Local government is beginning to use place marketing to attract and retain residents in addition to its traditional use of place marketing to attract industry and investment.

This exploratory paper examines regional decline in Australia and the concept of "place" marketing as means of arresting or reversing the decline, A conceptual model of place marketing by local government in Australia has been developed and a number of hypothesis are proposed for testing in future research.