UPDATE: Explore the Carphatian garden – Romania’s new touristic slogan

(adds the logo and info about controversies generated by the unveiling of the new Romanian touristic brand)

According to Hotnews, Romanian bloggers discovered similarities between new logo and some soon-to-be launched UK site, finding out also that the leaf in the logo can be found on a stock photos site, istockphoto.com.

Piticu.ro was the 1st to publish the information, which spreaded very fast in Romanian blogosphere and in online press.

According to the info published by Romanian blogs, starting with Piticu.ro, Romania’s logo is almost identical with the logo of British transport project Change Transport. The green leaf from the logo is available in online stock image databases for up to 250 dollars.

Romania’s touristic brand has the slogan “Explore the Carpathian Garden” and was launched today, in Shanghai.

According to sources in the Tourism and Regional Development Ministry, quoted by Mediafax, the new brand invites tourists to explore “the Carphatian Garden” and uses bright colours, predominated by nuances of green, blue, yellow and orange to remind of nature, Sun and sea.

Brand’s logo has Romania written in its center, with a round font, similar to hand-writing. Each of the letters in the word Romania is colored in couple of nuances of green. The letter “â” in Romanian had the special sign on top of it colored in yellow and orange.

Also, on top of the word, in the right side, there is a graphical element reminding of a leaf along a spring.

The slogan appears in the brand image in the downside part of the image, written in a common font, green and inclined towards right, on a white background with no other distinctive signs.

The Romanian tourism brand will be launched on July 29th, in Shanghai, during the Romanian National Day at World Exhibition 2010. At the event will be present Elena Udrea, Romanian Tourism and Regional Development minister, Teodor Baconschi, External Affairs Minister, and legends of Romanian sport, Nadia Comãneci, Ilie Nastase and Gheorghe Hagi.

As announced before, visually, the new logo features are freshness, inspired by one of the most powerfull symbols of Romanian people and in accord with the international trends of going back to the nature, discovery and conservation. The process of creation and promotion of the Romanian turistic brand, financed with European funds via Regional Operational Program, is part of activities thataim to promote the turistic potential of Romania and which benefit of a budget of Euro 75M till the end of 2013.

On June 20th, the minister said that Romanian tourism brand will focus on country’s natural environment, that westerners consider as “untouched” by men.

The pitch for Romanian tourism brand was won by the association THR – Asesores en Turismo, Hoteleria y Recreacion SA – Taylor Nelson Sofres. The selection criteria was “the lowest price”.

At that pitch there were present many companies known for their activity in branding sector and results obtained in time, Saffron Brand Consultants SA – Brandient Consult SRL – Acacia Avenue Limited and TBWA Bucureşti SRL – SC GFK România reaching till the end stage of the pitch.

THR – Asesores en Turismo, Hoteleria y Recreacion SA – Taylor Nelson Sofres won the Romanian tourism brand account with a offer of Euro 894,970, the lowest price among those offered by the companies involved in the pitch. The other companies that reached the final stage of the pitch had offers of Euro 1,6M and Euro 0,99M.

At the start of the pitch, there were 13 companies or groups of companies eager to realize Romania’s tourism brand, from which only 3 reached in the final stage of the selection.

Romania is making efforts for quite a few years now to realize a national brand to use for promoting the country abroad. This brand will try both to attract tourists and to give foreigners a correct perspective on the country.