Eduardo González
A new report by the Elcano Royal Institute and Reputation Institute reveals that, despite the decline in the reputation of most countries in the world due to the pandemic, Spain remains among the countries with the highest international prestige, in contrast to the self-esteem of Spaniards, which has experienced a clear drop after several years of improvement.
“We are in a depressive international climate because of the health crisis and, above all, because of the economic and social crisis it has produced,” so that “the image of practically all the major economies has fallen,” explained Carmen González Enríquez, director of the Observatory of Spain’s Image at the Elcano Royal Institute, during the virtual round table Spain: image and brand 2021. How we are seen, how we are, held at the Uría Menéndez Auditorium in Madrid and at which the conclusions of the report The Reputation of Spain in the World. Country RepTrak®2021, prepared by the Reputation Institute and the Elcano Royal Institute.
The study, which evaluates the reputation of 55 countries and was carried out between January and March of this year (in the middle of the COVID wave) through 24,000 interviews in 24 countries -including the G8 countries and Spain itself-, reveals that the crisis and the uncertainty generated by the pandemic are “taking their toll on the reputation of countries in general”, which translates into “a decline in the prestige of most countries, even in the assessment that citizens make of their own country”.
In this context, according to Carmen González, “Spain is not one of the countries that have declined the most”. Specifically, Spain remains “in the top group of prestige”, moving from thirteenth place in 2020 to fourteenth in 2021, according to interviews in the countries of the former G8. The loss of one place on the list is due to the fact that “Belgium has fallen slightly less than Spain in the Pulse index, which measures generic admiration and sympathy for the country, and overtakes it in the ranking”, but this difference “is not statistically significant”, the researcher specified.
The list of 55 countries is headed by Canada, Australia, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark and Finland. Spain is above Italy, Portugal, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, and well above the United States, which appears in a very low position among the G8 (35th). In any case, China and Russia are much lower on the list (51st and 52nd, respectively). Poland is Spain’s highest-ranked country, followed by Australia, France, Russia and Argentina. The country that rates Spain worst is, once again this year, Morocco.
Tourism and self-esteem
The study also reveals the “great recovery of Spain’s tourist attractiveness”, which already figures in ninth place in the ranking of respondents in the G8, well above the position it had in 2020 (fourteenth).” “During the first wave of COVID, the international press focused its information on two countries, Italy and Spain”, and, for that reason, “Spain was seen as a particularly dangerous country”, but, since then, the country “has become independent of the effects of COVID in terms of tourist attractiveness”, explained the researcher. This factor reveals “where the recovery of our economy is,” explained José Juan Ruiz, president of the Elcano Royal Institute, during the same event.
The report also shows that the self-assessment of Spaniards has “interrupted the path of recovery it had taken in recent years” and has once again fallen below the external assessment. After overcoming the 2008 crisis, Spanish self-esteem had been recovering from 53 points (out of one hundred) in 2014 to 76.5 in 2020, when it managed to surpass, for the first time, Spain’s reputation among G8 citizens.
However, in 2021, self-esteem has fallen by no less than six points with respect to the previous year, so that Spaniards once again see themselves as worse than how they are seen on the outside. This data, according to the report, evidences “the negative effect that the crisis, first health and now social and economic, is having on the self-esteem of Spaniards”. Apart from this, Spaniards are especially critical of everything related to the political system, where they rate Spain well below the score that these aspects receive from the G8. “On the other hand, from the outside, Spain is seen as a basically ethical country,” said Carmen González. “Corruption does not cause discredit outside Spain, but for Spaniards it weighs like a burden,” she added.
