Despite the complex situation caused by Covid-19, it maintains last year’s score in the ranking of the Elcano Royal Institute and the Reputation Institute that evaluates the image of countries
Despite the immense difficulties caused by Covid-19 in the world and, specifically, in Spain, the reputation and international prestige of our country have not been harmed. This is reflected in the latest report The reputation of Spain in the world. Country RepTrak, the international survey carried out by the Elcano Royal Institute and the Reputation Institute that has analyzed the international prestige of countries since 2009.
In 2020 Spain achieves a global score of 75.9 points on a scale of 100 -the same as in 2019-, which places it as the 13th country among the 55 main economies in the world with the best image. This rating places it above neighboring countries such as Italy (16th), United Kingdom (18th), Germany (19th) or France (20th), and well ahead of the USA (34th) or China (50th). Switzerland leads the ranking, with 83.3 points, followed by Norway (82.9), Finland (82.4), New Zealand (82.4) and Sweden (82.3), while Iraq, Iran and Pakistan occupy the last three places. According to the reputation strength scale established by the RepTrack, this score places Spain at a Strong / Robust level, similar to that of Japan or Ireland.
For Manuel Muñíz, Secretary of State for Global Spain, it is “good news that the esteem and trust in our country have hardly been affected by the recent Covid-19 crisis, in a global pandemic framework”, and stresses that “our image as a country is probably better than we think.” “It is important that we are all united in transmitting our strengths.”
For the RepTrak fieldwork, carried out between March and April – in the midst of a pandemic and a State of Alarm – more than 30,000 people from 22 countries were asked about Spain: all those from the former G8 (Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, USA, Canada and Japan), the largest Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru), China, Portugal, the Netherlands, Morocco, Australia, India, South Korea and Spain itself .
Quality of life is what is best perceived in Spain abroad, according to the evaluations of the G8 countries. Our country receives its highest scores in the four attributes of this dimension of the study: Natural environment (84.1 points), Leisure and Entertainment (83.4 points), Friendly and friendly people (81.5 points) and Lifestyle (81.1 points). Culture also stands out among the attributes of the report, with 77.4 points and 9th position.
Although the “hardest” aspects of reputation (economy, technology, business and governance) are those in which Spain has traditionally presented less strength, it is true that in the last year an improvement has been observed in aspects such as technology and innovation (66.7 points, 7% more than in 2019), efficient use of public resources (68.6 points, with an improvement of 6.6%), ethics and transparency (66.8 points, 6, 5% more) and international respect (71.8%, 4.9% more).
The RIE and Reputation Institute study also includes the improvement in positive attitudes towards Spain, such as the recommendation to invest more in our country, buy Spanish products, attend events, study, work or live in our country. Even in a context marked by the pandemic and the difficulties of traveling, the recommendation to visit Spain only dropped from 87 points in 2019 to 84 this year; a minimal decline taking into account the global collapse of international tourism. As a result of the good perception of its quality of life, Spain achieves its best score among attitudes in the recommendation to come to live in our country (75.7 points and 9th position).
Once again, foreigners who best value Spain are those who visit it the most: the British have the best perception of our country (81.5 points), followed by Russians (79.4 points), Italians (78, 8 points), Germans (77.1 points) and French (77 points). South Korea, China, Colombia and Morocco are, on the contrary, those that give the lowest valuation to Spain; however, all of them give him the pass (between 53 and 60 points).
The prestige of Spain improved slightly (1.9%) in the Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru), although the score is always below the assessment that Spain receives from of the former G8 countries.
After a long period, started with the economic crisis, in which Spaniards were evaluated with scores much lower than those received by other countries, Spain consolidates its improvement of the self perception or self-esteem in this year’s report. It is situated at 76.5 points and the 10th position among 19 countries in which the self-perception of their citizens has been analyzed. It even exceeds the overall score received from outside. Italy or France are some of the countries with a lower internal reputation than Spain.
Regarding the opinion of Spaniards themselves on the reputation of other countries, Finland (84.9 points), Norway (84.1 points), Canada (82.8 points), Sweden (81.9 points), Switzerland (81.3 points) and Australia (80.3 points) top the ranking, all of them with an Excellent reputation level.