Countries as Brands, How Does Africa Fair?
FutureBrand has put together an incredibly interesting study called the Country Brand Index 2005. They say that Italy, Australia and the USA are the top three – in that order. I highly suggest downloading a copy of the PDF and reading it.
More interesting to me is to see how African nations have faired. As you can see in the Country Brand Matrix below, only 3 African nations made the list: Egypt, South Africa and Kenya. Both Egypt and South Africa were listed in a couple of different categories, but Kenya only made it into one (above): the outdoors.
The study discusses the massive effect of tourism on the world, and the fact that it’s the 2nd largest industry in the world (behind agriculture). In fact, in 2000, 700 million people travelled the globe adding close to $500 billion to the coffers of the countries they visited. Pretty staggering numbers really.
After reading this report, I can’t help but ask why the majority of countries in Africa don’t take advantage of the bounty they’ve been given? The report states that people like to travel for adventure and uniqueness – does anywhere match-up on that better than Africa?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
[...] White African posts on yet another “country” survey, this time “countries as brands”. In the outdoor section there are three African countries, Egypt, South Africa and Kenya. [...]
Wow, I feel I’ve reached a new level in blogging. Getting picked up by Global Voices makes me feel like I’ve arrived in some way. Thanks for the tag!
a kenyan living in switzerland – those are the 5 and 6 for outdoor activities. i admit that both countries are very beautiful. what a shame that i’m more the “stay at home and watch tv or play xbox” type, than the “go out for a tiring hike or ride on the bike” type…
That’s the funny thing Adrian. More westerners seem to want to do the “outdoors” thing, but many Africans don’t feel a need to. Example: My friends in HS never wanted to climb Kili, all the wazungu wanted to.
Leave a Comment