The concept of "branding" has its origins in the business world but has expanded now to the national level to include aspects that help to mold a country's reputation. To improve the Korean reputation with great impact, a presidential Council on Nation Branding under the direct control of the president, was established. This Council, formed in 2009, had authority over personnel and was allocated a budget. This Council was in fact put in place to abrogate the tourism brand "Korea Sparkling". After the abrogation, the council was dissolved without any effort to make or replace the brand image with a new tourism brand. This case study aims to investigate the primary cause of this government's policy decision, and explain this decision process through the 'Garbage can simulation model'. Analysis on this topic shows that the decision of abrogating the 'tourism brand' policy was due to the negative characteristics in the Council decision making process, namely, the lack of an internal hierarchy and therefore a lack of responsibility. Tourism branding projects need to be continually developed, with a long term perspective, however, this was not the case. This paper concludes that during the government's regime change period, there were so many other areas which required attention, that due to this, as well as technology issues, and Part-time Brand Council participants, the tourism brand policy making process, was terminated.