When place becomes a brand: Creating values and benefits for rural people and places in a whisky region

As rural development becomes increasingly shaped by industries that draw on place-based identities, cultures, and environments, understanding how their benefits are distributed within host communities is increasingly important. This paper examines the interconnected whisky and food-and-drink tourism sectors in Speyside, Scotland, where both industries derive value from the symbolic and material qualities of place. In such contexts, place itself becomes part of the product, forming what we conceptualise as a brandscape. We argue that a mismatch can emerge between the value extracted from rural places through branding, production, and tourism, and the benefits retained within those places. To explore this issue, we combine value chain analysis with a brandscape perspective to develop a new conceptual framework for understanding the relationships between large rural industries, communities, and place. Drawing on multiple sources of qualitative data, we examine the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental values and benefits associated with the interconnected whisky and tourism sectors in Speyside. Our findings demonstrate that while these industries generate substantial benefits for the region, the distribution of those benefits is uneven and does not always reflect the contributions made by local communities and environments. We therefore argue for a more reciprocal relationship between industry, community, and place, in which the value generated through place-based branding is more effectively retained within rural areas.