Destination Brand Management for the Support of Political Identity: The Case of Slovenia

This article examines the development of Slovenian competitive identity over the past twenty years through marketing and political perspective. An inception and evolution of a destination brand is considered. The coincidence between the release of Slovenian new brand identities and decisive political steps Slovenia undertook between 1990 and 2007 is analysed in order to show a mutual interdependence between destination branding and political marketing. Since Slovenia started to develop a competitive identity of the country while still in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it is argued that this was done in order to promote its independence from Yugoslavia. Furthermore, changing of the brand identity occurred whenever a process of the accession to the European Union would reach a decisive point. Therefore, the development of the Slovenian competitive identity after independence was closely coordinated with political aspirations of the country to integrate into the European Union. The conclusive stage of competitive identity development coincides with inclusion of Slovenia into the Schengen and Euro zones. Such a coincidence strongly corroborates a hypothesis that there has been close interdependence of touristic and political marketing during past two decades. Finally, it is suggested that the Slovenian case of destination brand management is unique in new Europe and that it should be evaluated with regard to other relevant destination branding practices in the new Europe and the world.