The Traits of City Personality: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

City personality means a set of human characteristics associated with the city brand. Several studies have
adopted city personality measurement scale to assess their own country personality. In Thailand, there have been studies
on the city brand based on quantitative methods, which are unable to identify some emerging personality traits. In
addition, there seems to be no research using qualitative methods to study personality traits in the Thai context. Hence,
this research is aimed at identifying city personality traits by interviews so as to specifically assess such traits in the
Thai city context. Purposive sampling with the students of Khon Kaen University was conducted as the students were
able to give detailed information and had relatively long time for interviews. Moreover, Khon Kaen is a city outstanding
in both functionality and value, which enables those studying in this city to provide city personality traits categorized
into different groups. In so doing, 31 students who were well-informed with this conceptual framework and willing to
participate in this study were chosen. The interviews began with categorizing cities into three groups: functional,valuable,
and functional and valuable cities so that the research participants could identify which city they know based on these
categories. The researchers then put the cities nominated by the participants in order within each category by asking
them to choose two cities they thought would best represent each category. Through this process, the cities chosen totaled
six, which would answer the questions of city personality traits. Each participant must provide at least five words related
to one city, which generated for at least 30 words from each participant. Results reveal that the top three functional cities
include Bangkok, Chon Buri, and Rayong. The top three valuable cities are Ayutthaya, Sukhothai, and Chiang Mai. The
best functional and valuable cities contain Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, and Nakhon Ratchasima. Meanwhile, 281 personality
traits are found in the Thai city context. Among them, 61 are similar to those identified by previous research on other
cities around the world while 220 are discovered in Thai cities only. These results are therefore useful for developing a
city personality scale by drawing on the identified city personality traits. It is also interesting to note that both positive
and negative city personality traits emerging from this study have never appeared in the brand personality. This means
that cities may have different personality traits from those of brands and thus it is necessary to develop a city personality
separately from the brand personality scale. As for relevant tourism agencies, this information helps promote positive
personality traits for countries and cities. At the same time, it tends to prevent and reduce negative city personality
traits. Future studies may further assess these city personality traits by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses,
thereby making it possible to develop a city personality scale for Thailand, which can position the right personality for
Thai cities.