Venice may be one of a tiny handful of cities - including New York, Paris and possibly London - whose image is known the world over.

But the city's leaders are keen to boost their brand nonetheless.

Now, the city is about to launch a tender to design a new trademark, which aims to do for Venice what "I love NY" did for the Big Apple.

According to Mayor Paolo Costa, the city has unearthed legion examples of abuses of the Venetian brand, and is hoping that its new logo will point visitors to the genuine article.

Slowly sinking

Underlying Venice's new trademark initiative is a concern over the city's tourist sector, its economic lifeblood.

Venice has no shortage of catchy images

Venice is keen to attract a higher quality of tourist, while moderating overall numbers, which at times threaten the fabric of the fragile archipelago.

The city needs to boost overall revenue in order to pay for wildly expensive projects to clean the surrounding lagoon and prevent the islands' slide into the water.

It aims to license the trademark to selected enterprises, ploughing the money back into the city budget.

The tender kicks off in September and the winning design will be unveiled in New York in December.