Denmark: National Plan for Tourism

Résumé du document

The Kingdom of Denmark, commonly known as Denmark, is a country located in the Scandinavian region of Northern Europe. It is the smallest and the southernmost among the Nordic countries. Greenland and the Faroe Islands are autonomous provinces of the Kingdom which are governed by domestic rules. Denmark is 43,094km2 and has around 5.5 million inhabitants. Like many other countries, Denmark's authorities are looking forward to develop tourism. Indeed, this activity promotes economic growth, prosperity and better conditions to develop the entire country in both urban and rural areas. However, specializing in tourism sometimes brings less growth than specializing in manufacturing. Tourism is a viable growth option, though less effective than manufacturing, partly because the people working in the tourism industry are not high-qualified and human capital is one of the major factors for growth.

Extraits

[...] When people do have an idea of Denmark, their general attitude is positive as the figure below shows. However, the country's visibility abroad is very low. People's perception is unclear and vague and the image of modern society in Denmark today is highly diffuse. This is mostly true for geographically and culturally far countries. For instance, Chinese, Brazilian and South-Korean people only associate it with Vikings and Hans Christian Andersen. The USA or Russia, as to them, has a picture which is more like Denmark in the 1950s (classic Danish design, good butter and bacon and burgeoning welfare state). [...]

[...] Denmark must develop and use a number of techniques to promote tourism. First, a larger number of attention-grabbing events shall be used as a platform for putting Denmark on the map. For example, major sporting events such as the Football World Cup not only attract thousands of tourists, they also increase awareness of a country. Denmark should especially generate more novelty value to offer to the rest of the world. Moreover, better coordination between smaller initiatives would allow the country to benefit from the critical mass or shared direction that is crucial to draw international attention. [...]

[...] Generate a broader awareness of Denmark as a tourist destination Extensive research, both qualitative and quantitative, shows that Denmark is not very well-known in most parts of the world and that its image abroad is unclear When they have some sort of connection with the country, people often know a great deal about conditions in Denmark in their own line of business, but they do not usually know very much else. For example, they will only know about its food and a smoothly functioning public sector. Denmark is then in the middle group of 35 countries ranked according to nation brands. One of the main factors to determine people's level of awareness is whether they have ever been in direct contact with Denmark or Danes. [...]

[...] Denmark should not use the same messages when communicating to German families with children and to Japanese groups of tourists, for example. However, messages, pictures and stories have to be based on the same platform to ensure greater consistency and clarity in the signals sent out to the world. Indeed, Denmark as a tourist destination can, generally speaking, be promoted as a peaceful, safe, secure and smoothly-functioning country in which there is easy access to 17 excellent raw materials and high-quality simple living. [...]

[...] Considering all these figures and trends, the Action Plan for the Global Marketing of Denmark as well as the Report on Danish tourism set clear objectives. These must be taken into account every time a public action might influence tourism and, as much as possible, they must be considered by private actors as well Objectives for tourism in Denmark As previously stated, tourism is included in the Action Plan for the Global Marketing of Denmark next to four other individual areas of action and cross-cutting activities. [...]