The world's most marketing savvy countries in travel
Skift Take
Market perceptions vs press hype (read BrandUSA) are two different things in travel and tourism marketing. Lots of lessons to learn for U.S. and other more mature economies.
Some more goodness from the World Economic Forum's annual "Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report" for 2013.
Among the dozens of variables it used to measure the overall competitiveness of countries, one of the measures was how effective are the countries' marketing and branding campaigns in attracting tourists.
That question --among many others -- was put to about 15,000 executives in 140 countries globally, as part of its annual "Executive Opinion Survey", and came back with the results. The results below are a weighted average of the same question asked in early 2011 and again in early 2012.
Some observations: The rankings below shouldn't surprise, at least the top ones.
UAE deserves the place at the top, being over the top in every kind of marketing for all sectors of its travel economy, whether airlines, hotels, attractions and shopping.
New Zealand, meanwhile, has succeeded by using the power of its gorgeous locales -- beyond its marketing campaigns -- into movies, especially "Tolkien Tourism." And Air New Zealand has consistently produced winners in its humorous and quirky videos.
Singapore ha
