Doing good by the world whilst simultaneously improving brand image is a win-win for everyone involved. A sustainability agenda is no longer an optional extra for companies that want to maintain or improve the support they receive from customers, employees, investors and beyond; it is an essential part of doing good business in an open and transparent manner.

So what can cities, regions and nations do to improve their approach to sustainability and encourage more efficient output from the companies that reside there?

In 2011, Vibe Israel began the task of igniting new conversations that would challenge the international perception that Israel was little more than a site of conflict. Before the City Nation Place Global conference, the CEO of Vibe Israel, Joanna Landau, explained to us what they mean by "bottom-up country branding" and how they worked to implement such a monumental image change.

The industry of travel and tourism thrives on information and data – it’s what ensures the right plane is filled with the right passengers eating the right meals going to the right destination with the right baggage ending up in the right hotel room. Today, there are over 1.4 billion tourists travelling worldwide to more destinations and places. With accessibility and proliferation comes greater demand - travellers want more than ever before; we want speed, authenticity, security – we want it all and, crucially, we want it now.

The FutureBrand Country Index measures the strength of perception of countries around the world in the same way we study consumer or corporate brands. Now in its second decade, the Index reorders the World Bank Top 75 countries by GDP according to strength of perception.

The Index examines what transforms a country from a spot on a map to a place our survey respondents ultimately want to invest in, live in, visit, and buy goods and services from. Countries have traditionally been measured and ranked by measures of might — GDP, population size, even a sovereign’s nuclear arsenal. However, in the current day when our world is defined by rapid change, do these measures continue to make sense in the ranking of nations?

As bite-sized vacations and road-trips are rising, Nashville sits at the cross-roads of several massive highways and within reasonable driving distance from a good swath of the population. Finally, Nashville is growing its population and its business-appeal. More people living there and drawn there for business meetings leads to word-of-mouth and “come visit me” requests that help fuel influence-based travel. Oh, and Music City is also booming because of great marketing.

But what’s next?