Honey and smiles

It was mid-June and World Cup fever was already running high. I was dead tired and checking in for a late night flight from Heathrow. The lady at the check-in desk handed me my boarding pass and a book.

Like other passengers on that Air Malta flight, I was delighted to receive my complimentary copy of Caroline Smailes’s Like Bees to Honey.

Smailes is a British author of Maltese descent. The cover of her book flaunts a Cisk bottle and an old bus ticket. In her story Malta becomes a transit point for troubled souls. A Sunday Times article asserted: “The Malta Tourism Authority might have just found a gemstone for their ‘Brand Malta’ campaign …. Customer reviews on online shops … claim they have never been to Malta but the book has made them plan a holiday to the island”.

A quick glimpse at any bookstand will confirm there are many local authors and dozens of international writers who set their narrative within a Maltese context. Yet, this is the first time I ever observed fruitful synergy between a publisher and the Malta Tourism Authority. MTA promoted the book; the book helped raise awareness of the destination and what it has to offer.

Nation branding efforts

In a globalized world, that has lowered many barriers, nations need to develop techniques to compete effectively at an international level. For this reason, in many places we can observe a paradox: The impact of globalization processes engendered a greater sense of national identity. Yet in Malta’s case everything is still very much entrenched in partisan divides that undermine most national endeavours. This political culture hardly permits long-term national strategies or coordinated approaches that ensure that we remain afloat. Our efforts to brand Malta are fragmented, hastily implemented and uncoordinated between various sectors.

Nation branding is currently in the hands of MTA. It is widely acknowledged that past efforts to Brand Malta failed miserably as place branding does not amount to advertising to attract tourists. To effect a lasting change of image, we require a substantive shift in the way we behave. As already mentioned excessive polarization does not help. Nor does the growing negative perception about the insidious ways we tend to do things, which are far from being fair and transparent.

The role of public diplomacy

A nation branding strategy does not merely aim to bring more tourists to boost the economy; it should also develop Malta’s soft power potential. Malta can never coerce others militarily and economically. Nonetheless, small states are not necessarily weak in international fora. We have ample evidence of historic occasions where Malta played a leading international role. With greater soft power resources, we stand a better chance to obtain what we want by winning the hearts and minds of others.

However, Malta still lacks a public diplomacy effort that entails effective two-way communication with overseas publics. As EU members we now have a greater need to identify and improve our soft power resources and integrate them in complementary nation branding and public diplomacy efforts.

The role of culture

Both nation branding and public diplomacy emphasize the role of culture. Culture is the essence of our identity. It provides important symbols and rituals for the nation and should contribute to the construction of perceptions of Malta on the world stage.

This year we discussed a long-awaited draft cultural policy that finally acknowledged the key contribution of culture to Malta’s future. On paper, the Cultural industries are also placed at the heart ofthe new Vision 2015 which identified sectors for development that are deemed to give Malta a comparative advantage.

Malta urgently needs a three-way synergy between culture, tourism and international relations. For this synergy to be reached we need to have complementary Public Diplomacy and Nation Branding strategies and we should make a genuine national effort to implement them.