This November 6 and 7 in the city of London (U.K.), the “City Nation Place” Awards will be held, in which Costa Rica is participating with its “Essential Costa Rica” country brand with 4 nominations. This event will bring together 200 delegates representing national brand committees, city marketing boards, destination marketing organizations, and investment promotion agencies worldwide.
This contest highlights the brands of 24 countries and Costa Rica is present in the following categories: “place and brand of the year”, “better use of social networks”, “better communication strategy” and “greater citizen engagement”.
The director of essential Costa Rica, Daniel Valverde said “It is a country project in which there are many sectors involved. Being nominated in four categories is a reflection of what our team has built-in these years, of the joint, collaborative and aligned work that focuses on telling the world the story behind each effort”.
What is Country Brand?
A Country Brand is a strategy to position and capitalizes in the international market the image of a country and its objective is to boost the reputation through tourism, investments or the acquisition of products through exports. The country brand “Essential Costa Rica” moves in two criteria which are country positioning and competitiveness.
Country positioning: it is based on showing all the characteristics of Costa Ricans, who describe them as “pure life”, charismatic, “goal-oriented”, specialized and talented. With this, companies with the country brand seal comply with the values of the nation such as Excellence, Sustainability, Innovation, Social Progress, and Costa Rican Origin.
The only “Green Country Brand in the world”!
Essential Costa Rica has positioned itself as the only green country brand in the world so far, and this is thanks to the policies it carries out in environmental conservation and sustainable development. Undoubtedly Costa Rica has positioned itself in the world through ecotourism and it is that in this country you can perform activities, whether it be extreme sports or rather quiet walks through forests and beaches. Costa Rica is home to 3% of the world’s biodiversity and the average temperature is 24 degrees Celsius which makes it an ideal destination at any time of the year. In addition to this, the country has a system of national parks and protected areas covering about 25.21% of the national territory and a great variety of flora and fauna.
“Essential Costa Rica” present at International fairs
Recently the Essential Costa Rica country brand was present through a stand at the International “Fruit Attraction Fair”, which was held in October at Madrid, Spain. In which an estimated more than 90,000 commercial visitors from around the world participated. The objective of the participation of Costa Rica in this fair was to make companies and their product portfolio known, as well as position it as a business ally to potential international buyers.
In this stand pineapple, banana, melon, roots, and tubers, typical of Costa Rica and with a high export quality were exhibited. Álvaro Piedra, Director of Exports at PROCOMER, mentioned “we consider Fruit Attraction as an opportunity to diversify our presence in the European market, through the obtention of new customers and the monitoring of the current portfolio of companies. Spain is a market that grows at a significant rate in terms of demand for fresh produce; also, representatives from more than 100 countries converge at this fair, which makes it clear that it is a good perimeter for the exhibition of our country brand and that of each participating company”.
A fact that is important to highlight is that during 2018, Costa Rica exported the US $ 2,860 million in agricultural products, among which banana; pineapple, golden coffee, and cassava stand out. Among the main export destinations for the agricultural sector are the United States ( US $ 1,279.6 million), the Netherlands (US $ 285.2 million), Belgium (US $ 275.4 million) and the United Kingdom (US $ 175.9 million).
