Asia falters in global country brands stats

Conducted by FutureBrand Singapore and Weber Shandwick over the last two years, the inaugural Country Brand Index looked at opinions from key groups of consumers, business executives and industry experts. The survey focused on three areas: past -- arrival figures, occupancy rates, case statistics; present -- preference drivers, motivations and associations; and future -- trends, predictions and implications. The figures garnered were separated into areas such as art, culture, conventions, business, beaches, outdoors and families, before they were weighted in the final analysis to create a global index. And while the top 10 contained the usual suspects like Italy, Australia, the US, the Maldives, Fiji and the Bahamas, Asia was notable by its absence -- with the exception of Thailand and Australia -- according to FutureBrand VP strategy and innovation, Dominic Mason. "In the last two years Asia has dropped off the consideration set of a lot of international travellers," said Mason. "Thailand though, is surprisingly resilient, with many of the people we talked to mentioning how fast it has bounced back since the tsunami." Post-tsunami, Thailand was one of the first countries to roll out a blanketing campaign, as a way of drawing tourists back to the country. Mason cites other factors like Sars, bird flu, terrorism and pollution as contributing factors to Asia's poor showing, despite campaigns like Malaysia's 'Truly Asia' push. But he added the survey did provide countries with information on how to improve. "There's a lot of information here which will help a lot of countries market themselves more effectively," he said. "Tourism boards need to get their houses in order first, because they are dealing with so many disparate government agencies." China and Japan finished just outside the top 10, in 12th and 13th place respectively. sm