Abstract:

This paper divides into two main sections: the first section deals with background details to the Country Image study including the reasons why it was conducted, how it was designed, and the specific relevance of the study to the travel and tourism seminar. The second section deals with our interrogation of the survey data, focussing on the application of multivariate analyses; in particular the "Strategic Improvement Matrix". The Country Image study was carried out in 1990 by the INRA network of research companies across Europe and the United States. INRA is a federal or voluntary network of market research companies covering most of the globe. Each research company in each country is independently owned, allowing for separate national development while also benefitting from the membership of an international organisation. Within the European part of the network there is a central co-ordination office based in Brussels.