Today I was invited to give a talk on ‘Place Branding and Tourism Marketing’ on the occasion of the installation of the new Strategic Advisory Council for the Department of International Flanders, Flemish Government.

I was the last of 4 speakers and after that, the Flemish Prime Minister Kris Peeters, was going to deliver a speech during the reception.

However, the presentations were running late and the Prime Minister turned up early, so he entered the room half-way my presentation, just 2 slides ahead of this quote from Simon Anholt:
Although Belgium isn’t the greatest brand on earth it does have some equity, and to replace it with two completely unknown words (Flanders, which for most people is a character in the Simpsons, and Wallonia which for most people is simply ludicrous) isn’t just foolish, it’s criminal.
The Flemish government is deleting billions of dollars from the Belgium economy and they shouldn’t merely not be in power, they should be in jail.

At least I got his attention, while he took it like man ;-).

I am hoping that we can continue the discussion some time, as opposed to being deported north to my Heimat…