Sweden-lovers, what do we make of this:
According to Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index (NBI), which measures the global image of 50 countries in terms of attractiveness and qualities, Sweden in the 10th most attractive country in the world. At first, being number 10 sounded pretty good in my ears, but hmm… I’m not so sure. Especially if you look into the areas where Sweden score crap points. Apparently, The NBI study looks at six key areas: Governance, People, Business, Tourism, Culture and Talent Magnet.  Sweden’s worst categories was… can you guess? The first was tourism. According to the study, this is mainly because Sweden isn’t “rich in historical buildings and monuments” (we haven’t got any Eiffel Tower) and that many still think of Sweden as a cold, dark and gloomy place.  The second category was culture. I thought Swedish culture was a big thing out there with the “Millennium”-fever, our rapidly growing status as country of fashion and our extremely talented music producers who work with the biggest name in the industry. But of course, this is not enough to outshine ABBA, Roxette, IKEA, Alfred Nobel and Ingmar Bergman. In other words, Sweden is  living on past glories and not looked upon as particularly interesting culture-wise.

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get a bit bored of this old dated image of Sweden as a dark place where even the polar bears are suicidal and ABBA is king. Surely, we must have more than that to offer? Okay, we did score excellent marks for important things like government and responsibility towards helping reduce poverty in the world, so it’s far from all doom and gloom. But that’s not going to change people’s view on Sweden, is it? That’s more something of a well known fact.

So what about helping us a bit here? You probably know Sweden better than us. What are Sweden best assets? Places, people, pickled whatever – anything goes as long as it’s something not mentioned above. And while you are at it, what to you make of the rest of the list?

The 10 most attractive countries in the world, according to NBI:

1. USA (7)
2. France (2)
3. Germany (1)
4. UK (3)
5. Japan(5)
6. Italy (6)
7. Canada (4)
8. Switzerland (8)
9. Australia (9)
10. Sweden (10) and Spain (10)

Brief summary of Sweden’s NBI ranking:

• Overall standing: Joint 10th place togehter with Spain
• Best category: 3rd place for Governance
• Best issues: 2nd place for “Open, tolerant society”* and “Behaves responsibly to help reduce world poverty”*
• Worst category: 14th place for Tourism and Culture
• Worst issue: 21st place for “This country is rich in historical buildings and monuments”

Is Turning Torso in Malmö worth putting on a postcard?
Foto: Johnér, Image Bank Sweden.se