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By Ohm Kyong-sop
These days, there has been much discussion on the applicability of Korea's national tourism branding slogan, as experts in brand and promotional marketing have been open to share their praise and criticism of the current national brand campaign.
Accordingly, a controversy has ignited over the appropriateness of the tourism branding slogan, ``Korea, Sparkling,'' made public last year. As some of the opinions in question are based on misinformation that might mislead some readers, it is helpful to revisit the methodology used to develop Korea's tourism brand and its meaning and symbolism.
Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore have been busy developing their own tourism brands. From their experiences, tourism branding has been successful in improving their tourism image and instrumental in boosting the number of tourists visiting these nations.
Most countries recognize the long-term benefits of remaining competitive in tourism. They realize, however, that good tourism resources and facilities are not enough to draw tourists; a favorable tourism image plays a major part in remaining competitiveness.
In 2005, Korea developed a tourism brand through a systematic three-step process in order to establish the country as a competitive and attractive tourism destination. Domestic and international surveys were conducted to understand the current image of Korea. Surveys of 8,104 people from 17 countries and in-depth interviews with tourism experts from nine countries and 24 consumer groups were undertaken.
This research, together with an environmental analysis of Korea's tourism industry in addition to market research including a competitor analysis, enabled Korea to determine and understand the nature of the country's current public image, so that a brand identity and slogan based on three key components of people, place and culture could be developed.
These efforts served as a basis for the development of a brand strategy and the slogan ``Korea, Sparkling,'' and later, a brand communication strategy was devised. Finally, a ``Korea, Sparking'' logo was added to complete the branding campaign.
It is noteworthy to mention that domestic and international experts participated in this brand development process. Distinguished scholars at home and abroad, including one of the world's foremost authorities on branding, Simon Anholt, were involved in the decision making process.
In an effort to ensure that consistency is maintained in all of Korea's global tourism marketing activities, the slogan, ``Korea, Sparking,'' has been used as a unifying mechanism and is conducive in conveying the ideas of freshness and revitalization.
The goal of the slogan is to transform the image of Korea from a characterless, unknown and featureless country to a ``sparkling'' and attractive tourism destination in the minds of international visitors. Furthermore, this new image can serve as a source of inspiration and pride for Korean citizens.
Ohm Kyong-sop is vice president for tourism technology at the Korea Tourism Organization.
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