Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and the United Kingdom. Additionally, the plan
highlighted the development of four priority
products in Estonian tourism: conference tour-
ism, historical and cultural heritage tourism,
nature tourism and national parks and activity
holidays (Enterprise Estonia/Estonian Tourist
Board, 2004b).
During 2001, and timed to take advantage
of the media coverage associated with the
hosting of the 2002 Eurovision song contest,
Estonia commenced the marketing initiative
'Brand Estonia'. Branding is increasingly gain-
ing recognition in tourism marketing as an
essential step in the international marketing of
destinations. Van Ham discusses the develop-
ment of the branding of states in the political
context and defines the 'brand state' as the out-
side world's ideas about a particular country
that can have an impact on a country's eco-
nomic and political attention. This he defines
as a state's strategic equity (Van Ham, 2001).
Tourism destination brands are also increasingly
beginning to reach beyond the tourism industry
(Morgan
et al
., 2002). Estonia's stated multiple
objectives of the branding campaign were:
Fig. 13.3.
'Estonia: Nordic with a twist'. An
example of a marketing brochure to promote
Estonia in winter (2004). Note the 'Brand Estonia'
logo, launched in 2002, in the top right corner.
to enable the country to achieve greater
success in attaining foreign direct investment;
●
to expand the tourist base beyond Sweden
and Finland; and
●
that were taking place (Enterprise Estonia,
2002). Additionally, the country was identified
as 'a Nordic country with a twist' (Fig. 13.3),
and the Estonian people as radical and reform-
ing, resourceful and environmentally minded,
calm and peaceful (Gardner and Standaert,
2003). Importantly, this shifted the perception
of Estonia to the Nordic/Scandinavian region,
differentiating it from the other Baltic States and
Russia. The logo for the brand was the words
'Welcome to Estonia' in the shape of the
country. Although hotly debated internally
amongst Estonians, the branding campaign
provided a marketing focus in the prelude to EU
accession in May 2004.
to increase exports to European markets
(Enterprise Estonia, 2002).
●
These objectives are similar to those fol-
lowed by other post-Communist states as
noted by Hall (2002). In branding a destina-
tion, establishing a differentiation from other
competitors is essential, as is developing a
brand identity. Brand identity involves the
development of a vision of how that brand
should be perceived by its target market (Aaker
and Joachimsthaler, 2000; Grönroos, 2000).
This then helps establish a relationship
between the brand and the customer by gener-
ating a value proposition potentially involving
functional, emotional or self-expressive bene-
fits (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2000).
The Estonian brand essence emphasized
the essential character of the country and
people and was described as 'positively trans-
forming'. This was primarily based on the
successful transition the country had just experi-
enced and the positive nature of the changes
Inbound Tourism to Estonia in 2004
Tourism to Estonia boomed in the EU member-
ship year of 2004. Additional visitors staying
in paid accommodation numbered 261,000, a
substantial percentage increase of 24%, while
