THE Philippines will use World Travel Market as the launchpad for its new worldwide marketing campaign, called Rediscovery Philippines.
It will focus on eight major holiday regions of the Philippines including the capital Manila and its surrounding areas; Baguio and Banaue in the north; and Cebu, Bohol, Boracay and Davao in the south; and Palawan in the west.
New Philippines tourism attache in London Bernadette Lazaro said:”These will be used as anchor destinations from which tourists can visit other parts of the Philippines. They have been chosen because they are all accessible by air and have lots of hotels.”
Lazaro said the marketing campaign will promote the Philippines as an adventurous and eco-friendly destination through posters, videos and holiday brochures.
“Some advertising is in the pipeline but the budget for this is still being sourced,” added Lazaro. “As currency devaluation is still engulfing the whole of our region, it is not easy to find funding.”
Even so, the Philippine Department of Tourism is to increase the size of its stand at WTM by 50% to enable more companies from the Philippines to take a booth.
“There has been a lot of interest in WTM from the private sector in the Philippines because of a 3% increase in visitors from the UK, to a total of 97,704 last year,” said Lazaro.
Fifteen ground handlers and hoteliers will be exhibiting on the Philippine stand plus Philippine Airlines and, for the first time, Singapore Airlines.
The latter carrier’s participation follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Philippine Department of Tourism under which the airline has agreed to promote Manila in its advertising campaigns.
“As Philippine Airlines has stopped flying to Europe we needed another carrier to co-operate with us in promoting the destination,” said Lazaro
“There are lots of airlines that also fly to the Philippines, including British Airways, Emirates and Cathay Pacific, and we hope we can also reach agreements with them.”