I participated in the training course ``Regional economic and social vitalization through tourism

development: Marketing and branding in Hokkaido`` which took place in Sapporo, Hokkaido from 27 th
January to 25th February 2019. During this training course we had excellent lectures, so we learned many
new concepts, got some new ideas which can be implemented in our countries and got familiar with
very good practical examples. We enjoyed snow and cold weather in so many different ways, snow
sculptures at Sapporo Snow festival, powder snow in Niseko, drift ice walk in Shiretoko and snow
activities in Biei. It was a lifetime experience. Combining very useful and interesting lectures with
amazing site visits gave us an opportunity to come up with some new ideas and initiatives for our
countries, especially for future activities at our work.

I am in charge for development of nation branding policy in Montenegro, which also includes regional
and local branding. This branding process is relatively new in my country and this training course helped
me a lot in defining some new ideas and guidelines for future. I would highlight some of the concepts
that were most interesting for me from the aspect of branding policy which is my main responsibility:
transforming negative existence to positive tourism resources, community-based tourism for social and
economic revitalization, regional branding and establishment of DMOs. Before this training course I
have not ever think that something negative, or bad perceived can be transformed to positive and
valuable resource and that this kind of transformation can change everything in a good way. Knowing
this concept many negative existences can be transformed to positive tourism products (for example
extreme heat in summer, or cold weather and snow in winter). Community based tourism is a very good
way to engage local residents to actively participate in creation of tourism product in order to improve
living standard of the community, to help them get additional income, to decrease percentage of
unemployed people in the community and of course to help create developed community. Regional
branding allows us to make certain area more attractive for tourists, to make products and services from
that region more valuable and to raise demand for that products and services. On the other hand if
region is more attractive local residents from that region will have more income, more employment,
region would be better developed etc. DMOs are very interesting because they can be good link
between tourists and other entities interested in certain country, region or destination on one side and
between

The main reason why those concepts are most valuable for me is that through combining those concepts
we can create an interesting tourism product at the north of the country which is not so attractive in the
winter because of the snow and extremely cold weather. Through creating interesting tourism product
we can rebrand north and make it more attractive and interesting in the winter. Community-driven
tourism would ensure that local residents are actively involved in creation of tourism products and