The Chinese outbound tourism is expected to boost within a near future. Recently the market has been very closed due to legislation but as China develops and people are getting richer the demand for travelling abroad increases and the government has to let go of the regulations. In order for the Swedish tourism industry to benefit from the growing market, Sweden has to increase the awareness of the nation as a destination among the Chinese. Through qualitative research we aim investigate how Sweden through nation branding and marketing can increase its share of the Chinese outbound tourism. Except for nation branding a variety of marketing and branding tools are available. Two significant concepts are tourism marketing and destination branding. By utilizing all these different tools or concepts Sweden can raise the awareness of the nation as a possible tourism destination for Chinese outbound tourism. In order to create a comprehensive picture of the market we have also researched the general background of China and the nature of Chinese tourism. VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute are two organizations already working with these concepts and other similar strategies and are herefore a natural part of this study. Scandinavian Perspectives and Miki Travel are two major travel agencies bringing Chinese tourists to Sweden and therefore possess great knowledge of the areas of interest. Therefore representatives from these organisations are involved in the empirical findings. In order to get the whole picture Chinese citizens and Chinese students are interviewed about their perception of Sweden and tourism preferences. The main conclusion of the thesis is that the different actors need to cooperate more and promote certain aspects of Sweden, for example Culture. Even a few obstacles that should be alleviated are identified.

Problem: Which of Thailand’s four main sectors that nation brands compete including tourism, FDI, export promotion, and talent attraction that should be develop a main focus in developing a stronger Nation Brand for the country comparing to other four countries in South East Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines? Purpose: The purpose of this paper are 1) to study and analyze the current status of Thailand’s nation brand equity and 2) to examine the feasibility in each of Thailand’s four main sectors that nation brands compete including tourism, FDI, export promotion, and talent attraction by comparing to other four countries in ASEAN including Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia in order to generate recommendations for the country in developing a stronger nation branding strategy in the future. Method: In order to achieve our purpose, firstly, we chose ‘Asset-based Nation brand equity’ model to collect the information and perform analysis on the contribution of both nation internal and external assets towards nation brand equity. Secondly, ‘Nation brand internal analysis’ model was chosen in order to be a guideline for gathering data and performing analysis on Thailand’s nation brand capability in each of the 4 main sectors comparing to the other four countries. In addition, due to our research topic and limited time frame, we would rely on secondary sources as our main source of information with some guidance from our primary source. After the analysis had been performed, we had reached the conclusion and generated recommendation for our target group Conclusion: For the analysis of Nation brand equity, Thailand has equipped relatively strong internal assets both innate and nurtured as the country is rich with beautiful landscape and fascinating culture together with a strong support for the art from both governmental and private sectors. However, as for external assets, both disseminated and vicarious assets of Thailand still weakly contribute to the strength of the nation equity. Due to these reasons, we have recommended Thai governmental units to set up the organizations to improve the quality of disseminated asset and also start cooperation with private sector in order to come up with external portrayal in popular culture that can effective represent and enhance the country’s image. As for the result of ‘Nation brand internal analysis’, Thailand has shown moderate to high capability in the Export Promotion sector which was the highest among the other 3 sectors. However, based on the data in the analysis part, there are still lots of things needed to be done both by Thai governmental units and private sector in order to boost the country’s nation brand capability to achieve competitive advantage in the international market in the long run. According to this point, we had listed some recommendations for the governmental units to use as a general guideline in obtaining a strong nation brand that could help the country become more competitive in the global market.

Eftersom avståndet mellan marknaderna krymper och bidrar till att konkurrensen mellan länderna ökar, är det relevant att ha kunskap om sitt eget lands varumärke. Detta för att det i sin tur ska överensstämma med omvärldens uppfattningar som i sin tur skapar ett starkt varumärke. Denna uppsats syfte är att undersöka vilken image utbytesstudenterna på Högskolan i Jönköping (HJ) har av Sverige och jämföra den image med den Sverigebild som Nämnden för Sverigefrämjande i utlandet (NSU) representerar och arbetar med. För att uppnå syftet ställs tre frågeställningar. Författarna har valt att arbeta utifrån begreppen profil och image men har även applicerat Nation Branding på undersökningen. En hermeneutisk ansats valdes eftersom avsikten är att skapa en djupare förståelse för Sveriges profil och image. Med ansatsen var det möjligt att se om det fanns en överensstämmelse. För att ta del av denna information gjordes två olika kvalitativa öppna enkäter till informanter och respondenter. Informanterna utgjordes av två nyckelpersoner från Svenska Institutet som tillsammans med Utrikesdepartementet, Exportrådet, Invest in Sweden Agency och VisitSweden ingår i ett Sverigefrämjande arbete. Respondenterna representerades av utbytesstudenter på Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, Hälsohögskolan och Jönköpings Tekniska Högskola. Utifrån undersökningens resultat kan slutsatsen dras att den Sverigebild som NSU vill profilera till största del stämmer överrens med den image som utbytesstudenterna på HJ har. Författarna anser att det finns ett överensstämmande mellan utbytesstudenternas image och Sveriges profil, vilket enligt teorierna ger ett land ett starkt varumärke.

Today’s globalization has led to a much higher degree of competition between countries to obtain attention, trust and respect from investors, tourists and consumers as well as media. A powerful and positive brand is therefore an important advantage in the competition. Countries need to make themselves heard in order to stand out from the competition, and by using event marketing a country can be able to meet the public in a different way. One unique way is by using a ship as an event marketing tool to promote a country. The main problem of this study is therefore how a ship as an event can work as a marketing tool in terms of branding/promoting a country. Methodologically, a qualitative, single case study approach was used and interviews have been undertaken with professionals in the field of nation branding or/and that have a relation to The Swedish Ship Götheborg and its expedition to China, which has been our case of focus. The findings indicate that there is a need for clear and realistic objectives which are congruent in every part of the event marketing organization in order to promote a country. Using a ship is also a unique way of performing event marketing and therefore it is a good way of differentiate and expose a country, as well as it has an extended possibility to place market a country abroad and not just at home. This is due to that a ship has the ability to move all around the world. Our conclusions of how a ship as an event can work as a marketing tool in terms of branding/promoting a country resulted in a model which we created for nation branding organizations to consider in order for the event marketing to turn out successful. Due to the increasing competition among countries to obtain attention, the need for an extraordinary way of standing out is crucial. We believe that not only a ship, but all means of transport can be used as a form of event marketing with the purpose of promoting a country, since it is an unusual approach and has the mobile ability to reach a bigger audience all around the world. Consequently, we felt the need for a new term to be coined, namely Mobile Event Marketing. Our recommendations are therefore aimed at nation branding organizations that want to use a mobile event to market their country.

<p>The Chinese outbound tourism is expected to boost within a near future. Recently the market has been very closed due to legislation but as China develops and people are getting richer the demand for travelling abroad increases and the government has to let go of the regulations.</p><p>In order for the Swedish tourism industry to benefit from the growing market, Sweden has to increase the awareness of the nation as a destination among the Chinese.</p><p>Through qualitative research we aim investigate how Sweden through nation branding and marketing can increase its share of the Chinese outbound tourism.</p><p>Except for nation branding a variety of marketing and branding tools are available. Two significant concepts are tourism marketing and destination branding. By utilizing all these different tools or concepts Sweden can raise the awareness of the nation as a possible tourism destination for Chinese outbound tourism. In order to create a comprehensive picture of the market we have also researched the general background of China and the nature of Chinese tourism.</p><p>VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute are two organizations already working with these concepts and other similar strategies and are herefore a natural part of this study. Scandinavian Perspectives and Miki Travel are two major travel agencies bringing Chinese tourists to Sweden and therefore possess great knowledge of the areas of interest. Therefore representatives from these organisations are involved in the empirical findings.</p><p>In order to get the whole picture Chinese citizens and Chinese students are interviewed about their perception of Sweden and tourism preferences.</p><p>The main conclusion of the thesis is that the different actors need to cooperate more and promote certain aspects of Sweden, for example Culture. Even a few obstacles that should be alleviated are identified.</p>

<p>Eftersom avståndet mellan marknaderna krymper och bidrar till att konkurrensen mellan länderna ökar, är det relevant att ha kunskap om sitt eget lands varumärke. Detta för att det i sin tur ska överensstämma med omvärldens uppfattningar som i sin tur skapar ett starkt varumärke.</p><p>Denna uppsats syfte är att undersöka vilken image utbytesstudenterna på Högskolan i Jönköping (HJ) har av Sverige och jämföra den image med den Sverigebild som Nämnden för Sverigefrämjande i utlandet (NSU) representerar och arbetar med. För att uppnå syftet ställs tre frågeställningar. Författarna har valt att arbeta utifrån begreppen profil och image men har även applicerat Nation Branding på undersökningen.</p><p>En hermeneutisk ansats valdes eftersom avsikten är att skapa en djupare förståelse för Sveriges profil och image. Med ansatsen var det möjligt att se om det fanns en överensstämmelse. För att ta del av denna information gjordes två olika kvalitativa öppna enkäter till informanter och respondenter. Informanterna utgjordes av två nyckelpersoner från Svenska Institutet som tillsammans med Utrikesdepartementet, Exportrådet, Invest in Sweden Agency och VisitSweden ingår i ett Sverigefrämjande arbete. Respondenterna representerades av utbytesstudenter på Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, Hälsohögskolan och Jönköpings Tekniska Högskola.</p><p>Utifrån undersökningens resultat kan slutsatsen dras att den Sverigebild som NSU vill profilera till största del stämmer överrens med den image som utbytesstudenterna på HJ har. Författarna anser att det finns ett överensstämmande mellan utbytesstudenternas image och Sveriges profil, vilket enligt teorierna ger ett land ett starkt varumärke.</p>

Since its inception in 1956, the EurovisionSong Contest has been a stage for national representation and an opportunityfor countries to brand themselves. The 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku,Azerbaijan is a prime example of nation branding, both for the host country aswell as the participating countries. Hosting the event gives a country the opportunity to present a specific nation brand, but there are other opportunities for those countries which only have a three-minute time-frame for their performance in presenting a national image. These performances are themain subject of this thesis, which main question is: How do nation-states use the Eurovision Song Contest as a means of nation branding?            To answer this question, I use three sub-questions. First, I focus on the concept of identity: how does musical performance represent national and European identity in the context of the Eurovision Song Contest? Secondly, I study the translation of national identity into an image that should appeal to all of Europe, by creating a specific nation brand: how do nations use nation branding through culture as a tool to build an appealing image within the context of Eurovision? Lastly, I study the performance of these nation brands in specific cases during the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest: how is a nation-branded image performed in the Eurovision Song Contest?             The first two chapters of my thesis consist of an analysis of literature on identity and nation branding in combination with national representation in Eurovision. My third and last chapter consists of performance analyses of 2012 participants, focusing on performances from Romania, Russia, Ukraine and Montenegro, which in 2012 were some of the richest performances in terms of symbolism concerningnational representation.

The advent and massification of the ICTs and the widespread use of internet have transformed the way in which traditional media such as ratio and television communicate with the audience, not only because of the technological shift itself, but because of the convergence culture undergoing as a result of the new relationships taking place online.   Particularly, we wonder how the news’ organizations based in traditional media are adapting to these changes. Our assumption is that, although the news’ organizations have understood and are currently using the online technologies to present their information in varied ways with the intention to reach a broader audience and to generate higher levels of engagement, still much needs to be analyzed on how the contents are handled through each particular online platform.   Along this study, we propose to introduce the rationale of Nation Branding from a Cultural/Critical perspective as a tool to analyze how transnational news organizations present their contents, since, even when their purpose might not be to carry out directly a Nation Branding strategy, they might be falling into the use of certain features of the Nation Branding logics.   In order to perform this analysis, we explore, from a reductionist approach, the ways in which the English section of Radio Sweden International (a branch of Sveriges Radio, the public radio service in Sweden) has developed its online strategy, trying to identify: 1) whether Radio Sweden International is appropriating the logics of Nation Branding in the way they present their information; 2) if the online strategy of Radio Sweden International is oriented (either directly or indirectly) to build and/or enhance the “Brand Sweden”; and 3) the ways in which Radio Sweden International uses each specific digital platform in its online strategy.   We collected 1893 elements across the Twitter account (760), the news’ website (620), the podcasts (422), and the Facebook page (91) of Radio Sweden International, which were submitted to the classifications of the Nation Branding model known as “Anholt’s hexagon”. What we found was that, although 70.4% of the elements do fit within Anholt’s hexagon, 29.6% of the elements did not fit, these last elements corresponding to Domestic News and Self-Promotion of the organization, reason why a new classification of these elements was due, giving as a result 9 new categories of information different from Anholt’s model.   As a result of our empirical study, we concluded that there are indeed similarities between the way in which Radio Sweden International presents its information, and the form in which the Cultural/Critical developing perspective of Nation Branding proposes how the nation communicates within the convergent, global and networked society. Although Radio Sweden International does not have the direct task of promoting the image of Sweden outside the country, the ways in which this organization presents its information and uses the different online platforms can be related to the way in which Nation Branding intends to construct the image of the country both, inside and outside Sweden.

<p>Today’s globalization has led to a much higher degree of competition between countries to obtain attention, trust and respect from investors, tourists and consumers as well as media. A powerful and positive brand is therefore an important advantage in the competition. Countries need to make themselves heard in order to stand out from the competition, and by using event marketing a country can be able to meet the public in a different way. One unique way is by using a ship as an event marketing tool to promote a country. The main problem of this study is therefore how a ship as an event can work as a marketing tool in terms of branding/promoting a country.</p><p>Methodologically, a qualitative, single case study approach was used and interviews have been undertaken with professionals in the field of nation branding or/and that have a relation to The Swedish Ship Götheborg and its expedition to China, which has been our case of focus. The findings indicate that there is a need for clear and realistic objectives which are congruent in every part of the event marketing organization in order to promote a country. Using a ship is also a unique way of performing event marketing and therefore it is a good way of differentiate and expose a country, as well as it has an extended possibility to place market a country abroad and not just at home. This is due to that a ship has the ability to move all around the world. Our conclusions of how a ship as an event can work as a marketing tool in terms of branding/promoting a country resulted in a model which we created for nation branding organizations to consider in order for the event marketing to turn out successful.</p><p>Due to the increasing competition among countries to obtain attention, the need for an extraordinary way of standing out is crucial. We believe that not only a ship, but all means of transport can be used as a form of event marketing with the purpose of promoting a country, since it is an unusual approach and has the mobile ability to reach a bigger audience all around the world. Consequently, we felt the need for a new term to be coined, namely Mobile Event Marketing. Our recommendations are therefore aimed at nation branding organizations that want to use a mobile event to market their country.</p>

There have been a lot of studies dedicated to investigating nation branding as a set of political discourses and practices deploying analysis of objects of symbolic nature: logotypes, brand books, slogans and commercials. The present thesis aims to study nation branding as a form of communicative labour through investigating volunteering as a form of media work that is used as a tool of the nation branding campaign in Ukraine during the Eurovision Song Contest in 2017. By using the theoretical concepts of nation branding, values and motivations of free labour in media industries, the thesis analyses the role of volunteers in the nation branding campaign during ESC 2017, volunteering as a specific form of media work and the motivation tools employed by the organisers and volunteers themselves to make sense of their involvement in the event. The analysis suggests that the roles assigned to volunteers as bearers of the nation brand are of great importance but the volunteers’ understanding of this process is rather confused and blurred. Another point highlighted in the thesis is how is volunteering was organised in terms of training and motivation on the side of organisers and what kind of motivations were of the crucial significance to volunteers themselves.