Greece may be a small country, but it is a world leader when it comes to its tourism brand; the latest confirmation of this comes in the form of the country’s unexpectedly strong showing in a major international survey.

Specifically, Greece managed to knock the United States of America out of the top five countries with the strongest tourism brands – in other words, the countries with the best reputations for tourism.

That is according to the latest report of the Ipsos Institute’s Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index (NBI), which measures countries’ reputations at a global level by conducting an international online survey. This year, 20,019 people in 20 panel countries were interviewed for the survey between July 7 and August 31, as stated by the institute in a press release.

Greece, which has not appeared in the top five since 2018, replaced the United States in 5th position in the NBI 2020 Tourism category. This confirms the strong and rising position of Greek tourism at an international level.

The rest of the ranking for the NBI 2020 Tourism category features slight changes compared to 2019. Italy and France remain at the top of the list, while the United Kingdom moved from 4th place last year to 3rd place in 2020; Spain, which was in 3rd place last year, dropped down to 4th.

Ioanna Dretta, CEO of Marketing Greece, the non-profit organization for the promotion of Greek tourism, spoke to Kathimerini about this turn of events, noting that the index offers a great opportunity for the country to finally move ahead with the obvious:

“In a comprehensive and professional manner, with a strategy and communication plan, to proceed to a comprehensive redesign of the country’s brand. This is something that today is only done by tourism, promoting Greece in the area which concerns its touristic product, and that in a disjointed way. Thus, the time has arrived to take the next step of a holistic approach. Because these welcome results, which are due primarily to the high level of satisfaction of the people who visit Greece, are not enough.”

Greece does not, of course, appear in the top 5 of other NBI 2020 categories, which were: Exports, Governance, Culture, People, Immigration/ Investment.

Germany remains at the top of the overall Nation Brand ranking for the fourth year in a row, while the UK moved from 4th place to 2nd. France, which held 2nd place last year dropped down to 5th, and the US, which had stabilized its image in 2019 after falling to 6th position in 2017, dropped to 10th this year – all-time lows for both nations.

Germany, which has held 1st place out of 50 countries for the 6th time in a row, is only a year away from beating the UK’s record of seven years at the top of the index. Germany’s main asset lies in its consistent advantage across many categories, including Exports, Immigration/Investment, Culture and Governance. 

This article was first published in Greek on kathimerini.gr