Eduardo González
Spain’s international image and tourism interests have fared relatively well in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the ninth wave of the Barometer on the Image of Spain prepared by the Elcano Royal Institute.
The study, prepared through online interviews between January 27 and February 1, 2021 in ten countries (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, United States, China, India, South Korea and Spain itself), shows, in general, a decrease in the assessment that citizens of each country make of the other countries, including Spain, compared to the previous Barometer, published in 2018.
This general decline in valuation, according to Elcano, seems related to the impact of the crisis that the world economy is experiencing and, in fact, there was also a similar decline after the Great Recession of 2008, which affected all countries and all national and international institutions, whether or not they had any relation to economic management. “It is an emotional malaise that leads to worse evaluations everywhere regarding anything”, said Carmen González Enríquez, researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute and author of the study, during the Barometer’s telematic presentation yesterday.
Despite this, Spain’s image remains in the same place (second) in the ranking of prestige that it had among European countries in 2018, “a little below Germany and a little above Italy, France and the United Kingdom”, according to Carmen González. One of the countries that have fallen the most is the United Kingdom, which in 2018 was above France and Italy and whose image has been badly affected by the Brexit. “Spain’s prestige is very stable, perhaps like the prestige of almost all countries”, said the researcher. In fact, the image of countries tends to vary little from one year to the next, except when there are “exceptional circumstances, as is the case with the United Kingdom with Brexit or with China as the origin of the pandemic, which cause significant rises or falls”, she added.
Apart from this, Spain’s image has not been particularly affected by the management of the coronavirus. According to the Barometer, although the ratings are rather low, international public opinion generally approves (with a score of 5.5 out of ten) the management of the pandemic by all the countries included in the study, except for the United States, which is the only one that “fails”. Spain, with a score of 5.9, is above average, behind only Germany (6.5). “We can radically say that Spain’s international image has suffered nothing”, assured Carmen Enriquez. “People in the rest of the world consider that Spain has done as well or as badly as others, or even better”, she continued. However, “this crisis is not over yet and it is not known what should have been done”, she warned.
In any case, the international perception is much better than that of the Spaniards themselves, who give only a 4.8 (failing grade) to the management of the pandemic in our country. This data coincides with the general image that Spaniards have of Spain in almost all aspects, which is “much more negative” than that held by foreigners: 64% of Spaniards define their country as corrupt (compared to 27% of Europeans), 52% of Spaniards believe their country to be weak (25% of Europeans) and 62% consider it to be poor (43% of Europeans). “Overall, it can be said that the current economic crisis has produced a new setback in the self-esteem of Spaniards who, once again return to value themselves below what they are valued outside, as already happened in the period of the previous crisis”, the Barometer indicates.
Tourist attractiveness
Among the most highly valued specific aspects of Spain abroad, the first position is occupied by its attractiveness as a tourist destination, with 7.8 points out of ten, followed by its gastronomy, the Spanish way of being and its sportsmen and women. As in previous editions, the elements that occupy the lower rungs are those related to political and economic life.
Spain’s attractiveness as a tourist destination has not been diminished even by the restrictions on tourism established in 2020 due to the pandemic, “because even before the epidemic the vast majority of Western Europeans had already visited our country on some occasion”, according to the Barometer. “Spain’s image has not been particularly hard hit by the fall in tourism”, said Carmen González. Therefore, she continued, “the moment the pandemic disappears by vaccines or by some other means, Spain will have the same force of tourist attraction it had before”. “The forecasts are clear: Spain will recover its tourist attraction when tourists are vaccinated”, and even more so if the EU health certificate goes ahead, which “will provide a lot of security for travel”, she said.
