Country branding and residency choice

Abstract

This research was done to find out the relationship between country branding and residency choice of the visitors to Malaysia with country competitive advantages and emotional appeal as the mediators between them. Convenience sampling is used for this survey and a total of 116 non-Malaysian that were visitors to Malaysia responded to this study. The research instruments were mainly adopted from the ‘Fombrun-RI Country Reputation Index’ by Passow et al. (2005) and findings from Anholt (2005a) formed the research backbone to measure the country brand. Eight variables – Physical, People, Export, Investment, Cultural and Heritage, Social, Politics and Tourism had been chosen to represent country brand. Results from the statistical analysis reveal that all the above eight variables are applicable in Malaysia. This finding has further supported the use of the six variables – People, Export, Investment, Cultural and Heritage, Politics and Tourism by Anholt (2003) in his Nation Brand Hexagon. Another two variables – Physical and Social are also consistent with findings by Gudjonsson (2005) where these two are seen as influencers of a country brand. The results also reveal that there is a positive correlation between country branding and residency choice mediated by country competitive advantages and emotional appeal of visitors to Malaysia. This paper summarized the concept of country branding from the previous researches and has contributed to the concept and effect of country branding. It provides place marketers a clearer picture on which aspects of country branding are useful to promote a country effectively.