Tag: Country Brand Index

Country Brand Index 2008

This is the fourth year that FutureBrand, a leading global brand consultancy, has issued its Country Brand Index. After conducting substantial qualitative and quantitative research, this year’s Index includes rankings and trends as well as country brand analytics, travel motivations and insights into the challenges and opportunities within the world of travel, tourism and country branding. With polling expanded to almost 2,700 international travelers on even more criteria, this year’s Country Brand Index is more comprehensive, extensive and insightful than ever.

This year, Australia earns the first spot as the world’s top country brand for the third consecutive year. Not among the top 10 two years ago and rising from its sixth place ranking last year, Canada is recognized second and the United States rounds out the top three country brands in the 2008 study. Other countries making the top 10 include Italy, Switzerland and France. This is the Country Brands Index 2008 top-ten country brands:

  1. Australia
  2. Canada
  3. United States
  4. Italy
  5. Switzerland
  6. France
  7. New Zealand
  8. United Kingdom
  9. Japan
  10. Sweden

This year’s CBI touches on a variety of topics relevant to travelers and tourism professionals including: intergenerational travel (represented by countries such as the U.S., Canada and Japan), medical tourism, mainstream luxury (represented by countries like Japan and Spain), ‘stay’cations and a rise in the off-the-beaten-track trips. Other notable trends this year focus on niche travel opportunities and the changing destination landscape.

The Country Brands Index 2008 rankings for specific dimensions of the brand and here are some examples and the top performers: Continue reading →

Posted on by Daniel 1

Country Brand Index 2006

Principles of branding apply in equal measure to countries as they do to corporations. But methods are different. Countries will compete daily with neighbors or block regions for tourism, inward investment and export sales. There’s only so much business that can go around. Those countries that start with an unknown or poor reputation will be limited or marginalized. They cannot easily boost their commercial success. Consequently, they will often languish at the bottom |of the ladder of influence. No voice or even worse, they are the butt of jokers at every regional summit.

With toursim as the world’s second largest industry, and countries spending more to promote themselves, their product and their assets, FutureBrand feels it is time to look at countries in a whole new way – as brands. Since I presented here the 2005 Country Brand Index, is time now the 2006 Top 10 (number in brackets are representing last year standings): Continue reading →

Posted on by Daniel 4