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This research examines the strategic role of marketing-oriented urban planning and design in enhancing the city's visual image, using Ghardaïa, a UNESCO World Heritage city in southern Algeria, as a case study. The study highlights the problem of the city's eroding visual image, which is a result of the poor integration between urban planning and city marketing. The clarity of a city's visual image generally reflects the interaction between its urban formation elements—buildings, urban blocks, and internal and external spaces—and the background of the visual scene, such as topography and climate. However, the focus of this study is on the formative structure of the city's visual image, which is the combination of physical planning elements and the natural background. This can be conceptualized as the sum of two mathematical functions influenced by a primary variable, time (t). This is not necessarily a quantitative measurement of the visual image's clarity, but rather a qualitative assessment and interpretation of this image's significance, achieved by using strategic urban planning, innovative architectural design, and an effective marketing mix.