This editorial provides an introduction to this special issue on tourism, place brands and reputation management. It explains the themes addressed in the following collection of articles and briefly locates the emerging field of place brand studies and identifies its origins in the place promotion literature. The issue is conceived as a kind of open-ended exchange of ideas between scholars interested in tourism, place brands and cultural and communication studies in their widest sense, with the central focus being the further conceptualization and practical understanding of the nature of place brands. The second part of the editorial briefly introduces each of the following articles that attempt to make progress in engaging with some of these important issues.