Tourism players strongly push for implementation of Cebu brand

Cebu's tourism stakeholders will seriously implement the Cebu brand to take advantage of the upcoming ASEAN Summit to be held in the city this December.

During the general membership meeting of the Cebu Visitors and Convention Bureau (CVCB) tourism stakeholders called for unity of the players to truly implement a single brand for Cebu that will be adopted by marketers in their marketing collaterals like travel agents, hotels, airlines, among others.

Cebu Association of Travel Operators (CATO) president Alice Quiblatin said stakeholders should be united as one on how to brand Cebu to get a wide attention from the international market as a premium vacation destination.

Quiblatin urged the CVCB to lead in the serious formulation of Cebu branding as almost all of the tourism stakeholders are member of the CVCB.

"This [CVCB] I think is the perfect body to do and introduce what should be the effective promotional branding for Cebu. All sectors of the industry will carry it in the entire promotion," Quiblatin said.

In line with this, the Department of Tourism (DOT-7) in cooperation with the Cebu provincial government will be launching a book entitled "Cebu-Philippines: Resort and Heritage Destination."

DOT-7 regional director Patria Aurora Roa said resort and heritage attractions should be the appropriate brand tag-line for Cebu as it is a historical province, at the same time offers premium resort and beach attractions.

Although the Cebu branding efforts had been conceptualized for several years there's no official branding blueprint yet being applied by tourism players.

CVCB chairman Patrick C. Gregorio said the organization will be coordinating with the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) very soon to formalize and implement Cebu branding efforts in time for the ASEAN Summit.

"CVCB will soon make a tie-up with CCCI and the local government units to seriously start a one branding promotion for Cebu," Gregorio said in an interview.

Three years ago, tourism stakeholders in Cebu agreed to make a Cebu marketing tagline which says "Cebu: you gotta be here." But stakeholders recalled the effective Cebu branding scheme adopted few more years back which highlighted "Cebu: The Island in the Pacific."

Gregorio stressed that with Cebu's position right now, there is a need to re-invent branding Cebu as resort destination, and carefully analyze an effective attraction niche for Cebu that would create a market bite in the international traveling market.

Careful study on Cebu's positioning and create an effective branding effort can not be implemented "overnight" he added, but it would take two to three years to come up with an internationally at par market positioning tool for Cebu.

Nevertheless, the industry should start to unite the soonest possible to adopt a marketing promotional brand for Cebu in order to maximize the ASEAN Summit which will be attended by 17 head of states, including United States president George Bush.

On the other hand, the Cebu, Philippines: Resort and Heritage Destination guide book which will be launched on January 27 this year, features the Province of Cebu in Central Philippines and highlights some of its towns and municipalities, their history, the people, and most especially the different tourist spots. The guidebook also features different interests like golf, diving, art galleries, museums and shopping centers. It is published by PDP Digital Inc., and co-published and highly endorsed by the DOT and will be available in all DOT offices nationwide.