Heineken beer, Barça football t-shirts, Prada shoes, Mulberry handbags. All of these (real and fake) are now as ubiquitous on the streets of big Asian cities as in the streets of Europe. For a long time, foreign brands in Asia have stood for quality, sophistication and a touch of the exotic

Today, the first contact many young Asian consumers are having with overseas destinations is through a brand, and naturally, when marketing in Asia, many of these brands tend to use strong messaging that play on their brand heritage and home country.

For me, this makes for natural tie-ins between big brands and their respective home country destinations. Football clubs and fashion labels are especially well placed to do this, but so many other products and services could benefit from partnerships and co-branding between tourism providers and big label consumer brands.

The type of corporate brand-tourism tie-in depends of course on the product and the place. Some brands don’t necessarily want to be immediately associated with their home country as they prefer to appear truly international but I wonder to what extent the City of Barcelona truly understands its football club’s brand appeal thousands of miles away? How many more destinations are overlooking the power of brands to bring them more visitors?

The Rise of the Young Asian Traveller promises to bring some fresh insight into how the world’s brands and destinations can and are approaching this valuable demographic.Inside you’ll find the results of a wide-ranging online consumer study, input from national tourism boards across the region and specially selected case studies on the top brands that are making the most of the rise in Asian youth travel. The report will be available to PATA members and on general sale through the PATA online store. You can contact me for more information genctraveller@gmail.com or contact PATA: http://www.pata.org or email communications@pata.org