The Ministry of Tourism and Sport of the Slovak Republic has taken over the patronage of the international expert event COMPETITIVE IDENTITY – Image building for trade, tourism, talent and investment. Its main protagonists are Simon Anholt.
The Ministry of Tourism and Sport of the Slovak Republic has taken over the patronage of the international expert event COMPETITIVE IDENTITY – Image building for trade, tourism, talent and investment. Its main protagonists are Simon Anholt and Robert Govers, global capacities in the field of strategic reputation management of countries. The new ministry perceives its cooperation in the implementation of this event as a signal of professionalization of the discussion on how the good name of the country as a quality tourism destination is created.
"The branding of Slovakia in Slovakia has had only a few interpretations in the last 30 years, and I am afraid that none of them was quite right. If we want to embark on a new path in the topic of building a good image of Slovakia as a tourist destination, it requires a significantly higher quality of knowledge. That is why we have decided to sponsor this event, which carries a remarkable potential for creating a critical mass of professionals who, after completing the Masterclass, will speak one language and respect the practical perception of the topic on a global scale. The times when we imagined only a logo and slogan under branding will be replaced by a new stage of work with the country's reputation as a tourism destination," says the Minister of Tourism and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Dušan Keketi.
Behind the organization of the event is the civic association Brand Slovakia, which has been trying to promote the methodology of managing the country's brand for several years. "Masterclass is a tool for balancing the knowledge base on this topic and perhaps a solid basis for creating a new model for managing this topic in Slovakia. It is not a conference, its ambition is to be a robust one-day educational event for professionals, especially in tourism, but of course its program also remembers other topics that enter the topic of the country's good name," adds Zuzana Mikulášová, Executive Director of the civic association Brand Slovakia.
Simon Anholt
He is perceived as an international expert on the subject of landscape, city and regional image, and is a pioneer of a wide range of evidence-based and measurement-based methods. He first used the term "national brand" in the 1990s, although his approach to the image of a place is based mainly on public policies and strategy rather than marketing communications. Simon Anholt has written six books about countries, their images and their role in the world. His most recent book, The Good Country Equation: How We Can Repair the World in One Generation (2020), has been described as a "masterpiece" by Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The lecture Which country does the most good for the world? is the most viewed talk on the topic of "governance" on the TED portal (12 million views on TED.com and YouTube). It was rated as the 4th "most inspiring" talk ever by TED viewers. In addition to his best-known research project, the Good Country Index, Simon Anholt produces three major global surveys tracking public perceptions of countries and cities, the Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index, the City Brands Index and the U.S. City Brands Index, in collaboration with the research group Ipsos Mori. He is the founding editor of the academic journal Place Branding and Public Diplomacy and is an honorary professor of political science at the University of East Anglia.
Robert Govers
is a Senior Partner at Anholt & Co., where he has worked on numerous projects for the governments of the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and Qatar. In addition, he has advised many other clients around the world, including the national and regional governments of Luxembourg, three provinces in the Netherlands, and the city of Ghent. Dr. Robert Govers is the founding chairman of the International Place Branding Association, having served as an academic in Beijing, Hyderabad, Leuven, Rotterdam, London, Milan and Dubai. In addition, she teaches the topic of place marking within the UNESCO World Heritage at Work program in Turin, Italy. His book Imaginative Communities has been published in English, Portuguese and Spanish. He is co-editor of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy and a regular contributor to other publications, including Apolitical, the World Economic Forum's agenda, and The Economist's Perspectives Intelligence Unit. Dr. Govers, along with Simon Anholt, collaborated to create the Good Country Index in 2014.