Marketing Communication in promoting country's image

Ing. Darya Kashtanava

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Image of the country is important for country’s further development. It influences its local residents as well as foreigners, such as potential tourists or investors. It is equally important to work with both internal and external image of the country as it brings its benefits with low level of emigration and high level of foreign investments and tourists flow. The image of Belarus is rather negative than positive nowadays and that transfers into one more factor of slowing down of economic growth of the Republic. Foreigners have either negative impression of Belarus as authoritarian country or have no information about the destination at all and therefore they are no interest in visiting it. From the perspective of local residents the image of the country also weakens its position as economic situation in the country worsens every year and there is no work done on a national level to support national identity. The objective of the paper is to find the strengths and weaknesses of the image of the Republic of Belarus and to find the ways of implementation of the theory of marketing communication into improving Belarusian image. Most of the country's image researches have been aimed at western destinations; researches on low profile destinations like Belarus have been limited. This paper is addressed to decrease this gap by attempting an in-depth understanding of Belarus’s image as a tourist destination worldwide, on the basis of primary data collected from European respondents and partly through secondary data collected through the internet. The following methodologies have been used during writing this diploma thesis: primary and secondary research, systematic approach and scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, comparative method.

Abstract:

Image of the country is important for country’s further development. It influences its local residents as well as foreigners, such as potential tourists or investors. It is equally important to work with both internal and external image of the country as it brings its benefits with low level of emigration and high level of foreign investments and tourists flow. The image of Belarus is rather negative than positive nowadays and that transfers into one more factor of slowing down of economic growth of the Republic. Foreigners have either negative impression of Belarus as authoritarian country or have no information about the destination at all and therefore they are no interest in visiting it. From the perspective of local residents the image of the country also weakens its position as economic situation in the country worsens every year and there is no work done on a national level to support national identity. The objective of the paper is to find the strengths and weaknesses of the image of the Republic of Belarus and to find the ways of implementation of the theory of marketing communication into improving Belarusian image. Most of the country's image researches have been aimed at western destinations; researches on low profile destinations like Belarus have been limited. This paper is addressed to decrease this gap by attempting an in-depth understanding of Belarus’s image as a tourist destination worldwide, on the basis of primary data collected from European respondents and partly through secondary data collected through the internet. The following methodologies have been used during writing this diploma thesis: primary and secondary research, systematic approach and scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, comparative method.

Keywords

Marketing, Country image, Promotion, Destination image, Residents, Tourists.

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 12. 4. 2016

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 10. 6. 2016
• Supervisor: Ing. Jiří Šnajdar
• Reader: Ing. Petra Jílková, Ph.D.

University of Finance and Administration

Master programme / field:
Economics and Management / Marketing Communication