Music heart

Colombia, through its country brand “Colombia is Passion”, will move to the streets of New York and Washington DC a sample of gigantic hearts, with the objective of generating knowledge about the country among the American people, promoting the Colombian values, and changing the perception the world has of the country.

At a press conference, the general manager of Colombia is Passion Maria Claudia Lacouture said that from September 4th to 14th of 2009, seven 4 meter high interactive hearts will be located at the busy train stations of Union Station in Washington DC, and New York’s Grand Central Station, using the motto “Discover Colombia through its Heart”. Every one of those hearts will focuses on the Colombian qualities that foreigners find more surprising: culture, biodiversity, people’s hospitality, music, outstanding personalities, relaxing destinations, and the development of its cities; these are the themes featured by the interactive hearts.

Another 40 hearts (2.65 meters high) will be placed in central spots all over the two cities, and its content will be phrases of important international people, headlines of different media, and “surprising affirmations”, said Maria Claudia Lacouture. One of them will have the Nobel Prize Winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez with a phrase by Bill Clinton, where the American ex-president says that the author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is his hero.

Alter being in the USA, this big hearts’ exhibition Hill travel to Shanghai for the World Expo 2010, and later on to Europe.

The manager of Country Image highlighted that this initiative is for all Colombians and has the support of the private sector, because no-one better than them to know that if we change the world’s perception of Colombia we will open the door to new business.

“The Country Brand is not merely a tourism and investment matter, but it is also linked to the culture, the knowledge generation necessity and the information that will allow generating trust”, said Lacouture when emphasizing that her mission is to “change the dialogue used to refer to us”.

“This is not simply a nice and pretty issue, it is an economic issue, a necessary issue, which is a priority for the country, because the country’s bad image affects us all, affects tourism, affects investments, affects commerce”.

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