While Malaysia does have attractive attributes as a tourist destination, its image abroad can be boosted by creating brand awareness. German tour operators who offer Malaysia in their tour programmes are upbeat about the attractiveness of the country to German tourists, but they want the country to be as well-known as Thailand and Bali.

NaHHA’s work is based on communication between the Hawaiian community as the host culture and the tourism industry and tourists as a “foreign audience”, and is therefore closely related to public diplomacy...Although some of the mass hotels and other tourist corporations have been increasingly supportive of cultural initiatives in recent years, the industry’s priority is economic profit, which historically has lead to a commercialization of Hawaiian cultural elements for entertainment purposes.

A delegation of senior representatives of Korea's tourism industry visited Israel this week in a bid to increase public awareness of the country as an enticing tourist destination. Their trip coincided with the annual International Mediterranean Tourism Market represented by 30 different countries at the Israel Trade Fairs and Convention Center in Tel Aviv.

Universal Studios Hollywood welcomes the Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development's Culture Fair, a celebration of Chinese art and culture featuring three days of engaging activities and interactive displays exhibiting the historical city's most notable landmarks.

These days we often hear international traders referring to the delta as China's "workshop to the world". This year, 20 years later, China's newly elected general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Xi Jinping, chose Guangdong and the delta as his first inspection tour destination. He seemed determined to emphasise continuity in China's opening up and reform policy, and its modernisation and innovation drive.

In reality branding and marketing a nation encompasses many more activities than most people realize, and depends on a wealth of formal concepts, processes and models not implied by the soundbites just listed. At any rate, this is still a sophisticated subject to our society's level of establishment. Even a large section of influence makers might not be acquainted with how real nation branding would be operationalised to yield an economic value.

Few had probably even heard of the country Kazakhstan until the 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. At the time, the satiric film starring Sacha Baron Cohen was roundly denounced by Kazakhstan for its unflattering portrayal of the country, still coming out of the shadows of the former Soviet Union.

Six Taiwanese tourists arrived in New York on Thursday as the first from their disputed island to be allowed to visit the United States without visas, officials said. Taiwan is the first territory of any kind which does not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States to get visa waiver status, said its de facto ambassador in New York, Andrew Kao.