Why Nation Branding
Is Important For Tourism
By Thomas Cromwell
A context for tourism promotion
Promoting tourism products successfully requires
a context that allows your audience to appreciate
what your country has to offer to visitors. That
context is the overall image, or brand, of your
country.
If, for example, your country is widely viewed
as a modern, secure, clean and efficient state,
your chances of getting tourists to visit attractive
destinations are good. Whats more, if a
nation is known for its unique features, whether
they be cultural, artistic, natural or man-made,
positive curiosity will provide a context that
encourages tourists to discover first-hand something
new or at least interesting.
If, on the other hand, your country is known
for civil war, widespread crime and corruption,
inadequate infrastructure or an unfriendly population,
the task of encouraging tourists to visit your
destinations is very difficult. You have to either
pretend all those disincentives dont exist,
or convince your audience that they will have
no impact on a visit to your country.
Think about it. If you are heading to a vacation
destination that looks like paradise in the brochures
or on the net, but when you arrive you are kept
in a long line at passport control at an airport
that is dirty and has no climate control, and
then you are exposed to sweaty men fighting over
who will take you in his taxi, and on and on,
your vacation will be spoiled and you are unlikely
to return to that country.
The point is that tourism branding and promotion
cannot be conducted successfully without consideration
of the context for tourism, which is the state
of the country itself. Or, conversely, tourism
branding and promotion can best be developed in
the context of successful nation branding and
promotion.
The purpose of nation branding
We live in a world where countries are trying
to become the same in terms of infrastructure
and quality of life. However, national objectives,
including a universal core agenda to promote trade,
investment and travel/tourism, are best achieved
through differentiation. Countries need to take
a critical look at themselves and ask: Why
should companies invest here or tourists come
here, rather than go to other countries for investment
and tourism?
This self-critical analysis might well lead to
recognition of what needs to be done to make your
country more attractive. Is your legal system
robust and fair? Is private property and foreign
investment protected? Do you have the services
in place that business and tourists need? Do you
have the transportation facilities needed for
travel and trade?
This self-analysis is the starting point of a
nation branding process, because a brand must
be truthful and believable. Every country has
strengths and weaknesses and a good brand will
project a nations strengths while recognizing
its weaknesses. The good news is that a nations
brand is not fixed in stone; it evolves as the
country evolves. Thus even if you know there are
many things to improve in your country, there
is no reason to delay branding, which can be a
key tool in helping you get to where you want
to be as a nation.
The purpose of nation branding is to position
your country in the best way possible in the world
system, given its strengths and weaknesses.
And nation branding is not simply coming up with
a cute logo and tag line. It has a much deeper
purpose: to position a nation so that it can achieve
the maximum success in the world system, including
garnering the maximum international recognition
and clout, robust business relations with the
world, and a healthy tourism industry. By doing
this, a nation brings the maximum benefit to its
people by giving them dignity, and by creating
jobs and wealth.
Corporate lessons and tools
In the world of business, this is corporate, rather
than product or service, branding. General Electric,
for example, makes everything from jet engines
and locomotives to refrigerators and irons. It
also provides financial services. Each of these
products and services has its own brand, which
is promoted separately. But they are also all
supported by the corporate brand, with the GE
logo and Imagination at Work tag line.
Successful corporations manage their brands carefully
because all of their products and services can
either benefit from a good brand or be damaged
by misuse of the corporate brand. Also, these
corporations tend to invest heavily in promoting
their corporate brands because it is an efficient
way to promote all of their products and services
at the same time as part of a single budget.
Branding has grown into a science that employs
certain proven methods and techniques, including
research among stakeholders, benchmarking, etc.
And while nation branding is more complex than
corporate branding, because of the complex nature
of countries, many of the tools developed in the
corporate world can be used in the nation branding
process.
However, nation branding is a specialized field
because the complex elements that make up a nation
and the diverse objectives of government need
to be understood deeply and fully for the branding
process to be successful.
Branding is not advertising
Branding is a process that should be undertaken
before money is spent on image-formation and messaging,
and hence before communications strategies and
plans are decided, advertising campaigns are initiated,
web sites built or public relations paid for.
However, most countries do it the other way round:
they allocate budgets for advertising, web sites,
PR, etc, without having a brand to communicate.
Every nation is a brand
It is a somewhat new way of looking at a country,
but every nation is a brand. That is, it has an
image in the minds of people living elsewhere,
at least those people who are aware of its existence.
Some countries are known for good things, some
for bad, and some are largely unknown. This last
group is probably the most fortunate, because
little-known countries have the greatest opportunity
to establish a brand from scratch.
The problem is that most countries have had their
brands made for them. Their history, or current
events, as described by others (historians, mass
media, etc) have shaped their image, good or bad.
Hence Sudan is associated with civil war, inter-religious
conflict and poverty, Iraq with suicide bombings
and widespread violence, Cuba with Fidel Castros
Marxism, etc. But meet a Sudanese, Iraqi or Cuban,
and you will know that these countries have wonderful
people and many good points.
But even a nice image, such as Switzerland
being known as a land of cuckoo clocks and chocolates,
can be a problem for a country. For one, cuckoo
clocks and chocolates have little to do with the
success of an economy that boasts half of Europes
top ten companies, in everything from financial
services to pharmaceuticals and food processing.
And the Swiss certainly want to be known for their
real value and real contribution to the world
system.
Governments must lead the branding process
Clearly, no one in the world will create a good
brand for your country. Why should they? News
organizations are interested in bad news
such as wars, disasters and the like. Who is there
to make that attractive image for you?
The logical conclusion is that each country must
take control of its own brand. This means that
it must invest in its brand, as well as the management
and promotion of that brand. This is a task that
must be led by governments. Only a national government
knows the full agenda of the country and has the
power and resources to lead the nation in a branding
process.
Nevertheless, governments must get the buy-in
of all the key stakeholders, including NGOs, the
business community, etc. With this participation
in the branding process, these stakeholders will
then become natural promoters of the brand. Furthermore,
if the government takes an initiative that is
intelligent and clearly of benefit to the whole
country, it is likely to get the willing support
of other stakeholders. After all, every citizen
and organization in a nation would like to be
part of a positive image for the country.
A nations brand is complex
One should not think that branding a nation successfully
is an easy task. In fact there are few if any
examples of such a success. Countries are made
up of a mix of elements, including location, peoples,
cultures, religions, traditions, industries, habits,
natural resources and often complex histories.
A successful brand will embody and represent the
diverse positive elements that comprise a nation.
Hence, we at East West Communications call a nations
brand a metabrand. That is, a brand that embodies
several complex elements, possibly including other
brands.
Most commonly, countries have depended on a tourism
brand for their national identity. However, this
can be problematic. For example, famously the
Cool Britannia campaign initiated by Prime Minister
Tony Blair to help repair damage done by the outbreak
of Mad Cow disease in the United Kingdom was considered
a failure, despite many millions of dollars spent
on the campaign. The main problem was the Cool
Britannia brand was far too narrow. It might have
served the tourism sector well, or part of it,
but industry as a whole, including manufacturing,
IT, financial services, etc, were not at all happy
with it. The campaign did nothing to help them,
and they saw it as ultimately damaging to Britains
overall image and hence to their interests.
A good brand will take into account the complexity
of the nation it seeks to embody, and be believable.
At the same time it will differentiate the nation
from all others, putting it in the best light
possible, without exaggeration or distortion of
the truth.
Depending on a tourism brand is risky
Many countries have depended on their tourism
brand to project a positive image about the nation
as a whole, but there is the risk that the tourism
brand is too narrow or limited, as in the Cool
Britannia case. Furthermore, in an age of global
terrorism, a tourism brand can be highly vulnerable.
We have seen that terror attacks at tourist destinations,
such as Luxor in 1997, Bali in 2002 and Sharm
El Sheikh earlier this year, can result in huge
financial losses and a set-back for the country
in general.
In the cases cited here, Egypt and Indonesia
both lost billions of dollars in tourism-related
business, but also in their stock markets, in
reduced investment levels and other related difficulties.
For both of them, tourism was the only positive
image they projected to the world. Neither had
invested in a broader brand that supported industry,
investment and trade. And they havent done
so since. This is a risky approach.
Building on a tourism brand
However, in some cases tourism brands have been
successfully extended to serve a nation as a whole.
A case in point is Spains famous sun by
Joan Miro, with its tag line: Everything Under
the Sun. Although essentially a brand adopted
to promote tourism, it has also served to make
Spain seem a modern, warm and inviting country,
for business as well as tourism. When Franco died
in 1975, Spain was a European backwater. Today
it is a dynamic and successful member of the European
Union. After investing hundreds of millions of
dollars in promoting its brand, tens of millions
of tourists flock there every year, and its economy
is robust and developing well. The Barcelona Olympics
in 1992 certainly helped, but the City of Barcelona
was able to win the Olympics in the first place
due to successful branding and development beforehand.
Spain has been fortunate with the success of
its brand. Other countries might also seek to
extend a tourism brand to cover the country generally,
but this is not always easy, especially if your
tourism products are strictly sea, sun and sand.
A better strategy is to create a brand identity
for the nation that supports tourism, including
a tourism brand.
Many countries are now seriously thinking about
the process and benefits of nation branding, but
in many instances the task seems overwhelming
in its magnitude, and governments simply dont
take action.
In these cases, it might be wise for tourism
branding to take on as much of the role of nation
branding as possible. Looked at in its broadest
sense, the tourism sector includes much of what
makes up a nation, including infrastructure, government
and private services, the environment, etc, and
there is a good argument for a tourism brand to
embrace those elements, especially in the absence
of a nation brand.
All these considerations must be carefully crafted
into any tourism communications strategy and be
delivered with maximum creative impact to the
target audiences. In this way the nation branding
process is initiated through tourism branding.
The nation branding process
The techniques used in branding nations are largely
taken from the corporate world and adapted to
the particular circumstances of countries. In
particular, any credible branding process must
begin with in-depth research and analysis, including
getting the input of stakeholders. With this information,
as well as an articulation of the nations
vision, brand-building can begin in earnest.
It is difficult for us humans to see ourselves
in a true perspective, as others see us. Even
in the corporate world, outside branding consultants
are used to help corporate executives make wise
decisions about their all-important brands.
Likewise, it is difficult for a nation to see
itself clearly. Therefore, it is desirable for
a country to seek a branding partner to conduct
the research and analysis, to develop a creative
brief, and to propose images and messages. Every
nation owns its own brand, and must make all the
critical decisions regarding its formation and
management, but in the complex world we live in
today, the advice of experts is essential to success.
Promoting the brand
The brand must be adopted internally first, then
domestically, meaning throughout the nation, by
all stakeholders. Only then can it be effectively
promoted internationally. At this point, a variety
of tools can be used to promote the brand, from
web sites and trade missions to advertising campaigns
and embassies abroad. Again, advice from a branding
and communications partner is needed for these
steps in the roll-out, management and promotion
of the brand.
Thomas Cromwell is the president of East West
Communications, based in Washington, DC, which
advises the Communications and Press Department
of the World Tourism Organization. He is considered
one of the leading nation branding experts in
the world.
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