City of the Air, Funding Strategy for City Branding, San Javier

Year: 2020  |  Client: Ayuntamiento de San Javier (Murcia)  |  Country: Spain (Región de Murcia)

Cities Forum designed a financing strategy to build and fund the "San Javier, City of the Air" (Ciudad del Aire) city brand, capitalising on the town's deep aeronautical heritage as home to the Academia General del Aire. City branding is only as strong as the resources behind it; the assignment's distinctive focus was therefore not just the brand concept but a concrete, multi-year plan to pay for it, mobilising national and European funding to turn identity into investment and activity.

Our approach

The work opened with an analysis of the city-brand opportunity and a structured SWOT (DAFO), identifying San Javier's distinctive assets, its competitive position and the financing needs of an ambitious branding programme. From there, Cities Forum built a curated catalogue of national and EU grant instruments matched to a four-year horizon, mapping which funds could support which flagship actions. Those actions gave the brand tangible substance: an open-air aeronautical museum, an annual or biennial air festival, a "Museo Hangar" at San Javier airport, thematic congresses and events, and new aeronautical-tourism services, a coherent programme capable of positioning San Javier as a distinctive destination built around aviation.

What we delivered

The deliverables combined the branding and opportunity analysis with a funding roadmap and a commercialisation and monetisation model, including estimates of the direct and indirect economic impact the brand could generate. The team, coordinated by Cities Forum co-founder Jaime Ruiz and including an EU-policy specialist with senior regional-government experience, grounded the strategy in both place-branding good practice and a realistic reading of the Spanish and European funding landscape.

Impact

The strategy gave San Javier a practical route to develop a differentiated city brand anchored in its aeronautical identity, backed by a financing plan rather than aspiration alone. For Cities Forum, the project illustrates a capability that complements its mobility and smart-city work: helping smaller municipalities convert a distinctive local asset into a funded, economically productive place brand, aligned with national and European investment opportunities.