Bulgaria Beats Romania in Tourism Brand Appeal – Study

Bulgaria ranks 23rd in Europe in terms of its tourism brand appeal, overtaking its northern neighbor Romania, according to a study that looked at how people searched the internet. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria ranks 23rd in Europe in terms of its tourism brand appeal, overtaking its northern neighbor Romania, according to a study that looked at how people searched the internet.

Madrid-based Bloom Consulting recently released world rankings on how countries promote their online presence as tourist destinations and places to do business, with Bulgaria coming in at 23 for both.

The "2013 Bloom Consulting Country Brand Ranking" trade edition used an algorithm to determine how well a country pitches itself to foreign investors.

The algorithm uses factors such as net foreign direct investment in?ows and investment growth, business environment, country branding strategy, official websites and promotion on social media.

This year the top 5 Destination Brands in Europe are Spain, Germany, France, the U.K. and Italy, accounting all together for more than 50% of the tourism revenues in the region and each with a vast tourism offering.

Spain retains its position at number 1 in the ranking, with tourism receipts and tourist arrivals having recovered to pre-crisis level and continuing to grow. Spain is also very active in promoting itself online.

Spain is followed very closely by Germany (2), which this year surpassed France (3).

Compared to France, Germany has a stronger growth in tourist arrivals and a better positioned Destination Brand Strategy that helped it to secure the second place.

Similarly, the U.K. (4) stands very close to Italy (5).

The small Alpine countries of Austria (6) and Switzerland (7) have very popular and strong Tourism Brands. Their outstanding performance demonstrates once again that a country's size is not a deciding factor when it comes to its success in Nation Branding.

Greece earned the 8th position, Netherlands the 9th, and Portugal 10th.

Finally, the survey found that Sweden (12) outperformed other Nordic countries, even though it does not have the best rating, and Russia (13), probably due to damaged reputation, declined three places compared to last year.

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