Cultural Heritage and Nation Branding: A Marketing Driver for Sustainable Development

Until recently, brands and branding were used almost exclusively in a commercial context as tools employed in the promotion and sales of different goods and services. The extension of the scope of marketing to the societal level has expanded the area of branding applicability from economic to social, from profit to non-profit, and from individuals to nations. Valuable elements, an important part of them having a solid cultural background, can be identified and employed nowadays to build and capitalize on brands not only for products and services but also for individuals and communities, respectively organizations and nations. Does cultural heritage matter, and if so, to what extent, in the endeavors of building, promoting, and capitalizing on a nation's brand? Can cultural heritage contribute to the nation's branding effort and act together as a marketing driver to enable a country's sustainable development? These are the questions this paper aims to answer from a marketing perspective, after assessing the secondary data on cultural heritage, nations' branding, and dimensions of sustainable development for a group of selected countries.