Gov’t adopting wrong strategy to attract tourists, says SOS

The Philippine government is undertaking the wrong marketing strategy abroad to promote the country as a tourism destination and implementing a misguided air policy, and the wrong approach could be shown by the static figure on tourist arrival.

The Save Our Skies (SOS) movement, a non-governmental advocacy group in the tourism and aviation industry, noted that there has been no proper tourism promotions, with the private sector even being taken for granted by the government.

For example, it said, the Philippines is advertising the country’s destination on cable channel CNN. "But what we have forgotten is that CNN is an English language program. The non-English speaking tourists do not watch CNN," Robert Lim Joseph, SOS president said.

Meanwhile, Joseph, who is also the honorary consul of Latvia to the Philippines, said he has invited all honorary consuls of Latvia worldwide to visit the country and help promote its tourist destinations.

"We are expecting from 30 to 40 honorary consuls from the same number of countries to visit the Philippines in January next year. This is part of the efforts of SOS and the National Association of Independent Travel Agencies (NAITAS) to promote the country," he said.

Joseph stressed that if the government wants to target the Germans, French and other European tourists, which is considered a big market, it has to advertise in channels of programs that cater to or being watched by these people. He added that the Chinese and Japanese definitely do not watch CNN.

He said if the intention of the CNN advertisement is to target English-speaking tourists, "then we have been unsuccessful because most of those that visited the Philippines are Filipino balikbayans from the US, not the Americans."

"So there is really a need to review our marketing strategy as well as our air policy in order that the private sector and government agencies involved in tourism can come up with an effective promotion approach," he said.

"The marketing campaign has to contain one slogan or brand and identify the priority destinations or niche market to be promoted because we cannot sell the entire country," Joseph pointed out.

He lamented the fact that most of the time, politics comes into play whenever the government embarks on a tourism campaign. "If ever the government listens to the private sector, it is only during committee meetings.

Joseph said the government’s tourism program does not have cohesiveness. "When the government embarks on a project it has to be consistent and persistent. It should not be done haphazardly. It should come up with a slogan or identity and all government agencies must be mandated to adopt or use it."

"We have to come up with attractive packages that can sell based on a niche market. Once we decide on these packages, we have to go all the way and involve not only the central government and the private sector but also local government units," he said.