Tourism promotion : China, Taiwan, Korea and Israel

Suppose you’re heading the tourism promotion team for your country, say China, Taiwan, Korea or Israel, and you have total control and no money constraints, what would you focus on?

Last week, I talked with two Chinese who visited Israel and were extremely surprised  with what they saw here. Putting it nicely, they were expecting a desert wasteland with religious people riding camels and shooting each other. We got into a discussion of how Israel is promoted in China and how China is promoted world wide, and it was interesting to see what each of us wanted to focus on.

When I asked them to guess what the Israeli tourism bureau chose to promote Israel with, the Chinese suggested that Israel should focus about the history and culture. They claimed Chinese and the world would be attracted to the fact that Israel is one of the few places with a history as long as China’s with a unique combination of religion and races. They were quite shocked when I told them what the theme for 2007 was :

Yep, beach culture and Israeli girls. There’s a long debate within those who care about this subject in Israel, but what was interesting is that the Chinese rightfully responded with – "but why look for that in Israel when we can go have that in Thailand?".

And so, I tried to remember all the promotional videos I saw of countries I follow closely in East Asia. Consider, for example, China – Israel’s 2nd most popular tourist destination for the year 2006, with the emphasis on Chinese scenery and culture:

Or maybe Taiwan’s "Touch your heart" campaign:

But the best promotion video I saw lately was at the opening of the Korean movie festival in Jerusalem, with Korea’s new "Dynamic Korea":

Which one do you like? how would you promote those countries?