Week 10 Tosha Hanford

Romania is a country that has tried a variety of methods to create a successful image and the nation brand. The focus of the Romanian nation brand seems to focus on tourism.  One example was their first promotional campaign launch in  2001 called, "Romanian, Simply Surprising." This campaign targeted traveling Europeans between the ages of 30-55, and hoped to encourage the to travel to Romania for their holidays. Although this campaign was very criticized for its high cost (estimated to be $20 millions dollars) it did get Romania to a variety of people across Europe. Another example of an attempt to create a successful nation image promoting tourism was the study ordered by the National Authority of Tourism. This study was aimed at trying to help Romania discover it's image as a tourist destination. On the foreign front, many attempts were made to promote Romania as a great place for foreign investment. On example of this can be found in an explanation by the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investments elaborating on foreign investor's  perception of Romania:

“Romania’s image as a host country for foreign direct investments has improved in last years due to objective changes: a) the macroeconomic stability increased as reflected by the ratings given to Romania by agencies such as Standard&Poor’s, Moody’s, Japan Credit Rating Agency, b) negotiations for Romania’s accession to European Union have been finalized illustrating a higher economic stability, c) Romania’s accession in 2005 to the OECD Declaration for foreign investments and transnational companies - Romania is not a OECD member, but it is an observer on committees and working groups, d) a decrease of the inflation rate resulting a lower financing cost and others."

This explanation also goes on to examine the negative areas that are still present in Romania-bureaucracy and corruption. However the point was made that this negative perception was actually changed once those investors actually became involved with and entered the realities of Romanian market. Such that the profits were higher than expected, etc...

References:


Nicolescu, Luminita, Cristian Paun, Irina Popescu, and Alina Draghici. "Romania Trying to Be a European Brand." ROMANIA TRYING TO BE AN EUROPEAN BRAND (n.d.): n. pag. 2005. Web. 2012.


I have more to add about Viet Nam but computer is dying.... Will edit later tonight...