Destino seguro: Sensual Licence and Moral Capital in Cuba’s Nation Brand

This article considers Cuban tourism campaigns as exploitations of moral distinction, underpinned by revolutionary policy and ideology. Drawing on campaign materials and interviews with state actors in the tourist sector, this article explores Cuba’s nation brand since the 2000s as the strategic appropriation of moral capital. Reflecting society’s strong moral basis, articulations of safety, stability and solidarity may be read as attempts to correct unwanted reputations, distinguish Cuba from rival Latin American and Caribbean destinations, and galvanise the legitimacy of Revolution through a codified celebration of its successes. The article thus seeks to add nuance to persistent interpretations of Cuban tourism development since the 1990s as a profit-driven compromise to the Revolution’s moralistic impulse

Former Yugoslavia on the world wide web: Commercialization and branding of nation-states

Since the violent collapse of former Yugoslavia, the ‘new’ nation-states of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia have attempted to position themselves on the global map while seeking to create a distinctive ‘brand’ (national) identity. Drawing on a textual analysis of their official governmental websites, this article explores how these former Yugoslav states use the Internet to create and represent self-images for the world. The governmental websites analysed frame the nation as a ‘brand’ in that they employ advertising mechanisms to promote and sell their nations. Websites represent national territories, histories, products and citizens as commodities that can be sold to foreign investors and tourists. In this way, the former Yugoslav countries are transformed into brand-states that serve the function of relegating their citizens to the role of either exotic Others ready to be consumed by rich western tourists, or goods for foreign investment