Travel fair poised to make 'all roads lead to North Phl'

MANILA, Philippines - A grand and colorful travel fair is briskly being prepared in the heart of Manila to figuratively make “all roads lead to northern Philippines.”

Dubbed Tara na sa Norte Travel (TNT) Fair, the event is being organized for staging on July 13 to 15 at the Atrium, Robinson’s Place, right in the middle of Manila’s tourism belt.

TNT Fair organizer Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC) said the show would be “explosively attractive” to draw local and global attention to the beauty of the North.

A member of the Metro Pacific Group of top businessman Manny V. Pangilinan, the MNTC is the concessionaire of the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX), the world-class infrastructure backbone of the vast road network leading to the various parts of the northern region.

MNTC vice president for marketing Renie Ticzon cited the region as the country’s single largest mainland tourism destination still waiting for the world to explore.

“North Philippines is now up and ready for the world to see, with two international gateways in the Clark and Subic freeport zones to welcome inbound visitors,” Ticzon said.

Subic hosts an international seaport, and Clark the Clark International Airport (CIA), now emerging as Southeast Asia’s next major global gateway.

The CIA is one of Asia’s biggest aviation complexes, having two parallel runways and a host of modern facilities for both passengers and cargoes.

The CIA is envisioned to become the next premier international gateway in the Philippines and the best services and logistics center in the Asia-Pacific, according to the Clark Development Corp. (CDC), which runs and manages the entire 4,500-hectare freeport and all its component facilities that provide a window to the North. 

These exotic destinations “from the mountain to the sea” will be featured at the TNT Fair, according to MICE Co. and its event manager Afro Asian World Events (AWE), a group dubbed by the industry as an “ultra-event creator.”

AWE president Angel Ramos Bognot said the fair was envisioned by the MNTC to help bring about the rise of North Philippines as Southeast Asia’s travel and tourism capital through market-driven industry and product development.

“This is being done by enabling the fair’s exhibitors from the North to link up with Clark and the Metro Pacific Group, establish their brand presence in the Manila CBD (central business district), provide them with the best venue for trade and consumer marketing, prop up their sales for the low season through the TNT Fair’s Lakbay Grande Deals program, generate advance booking for their high-season tour packages, pave the way for their business networking with travel agencies and corporate accounts in the metropolis, and initiate and create physical and socioeconomic linkages between northern and southern Philippines and the rest of the world,” Bognot said.

Now on its fourth year, the fair is supported by the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority, CDC and Air Asia, and is credited for raising the business volume of participating travel and tourism establishments and allied industries.

The fair began in 2009 when it was held in an unlikely location at a gasoline station along NLEX, where it promoted domestic tourism and helped generate a 20-percent increase in visitor arrivals in central and northern Luzon.

Supported by the Department of Tourism, the fair again drew 100 percent participation in 2010, gained wide media exposure and, with the support of the academe and the diplomatic community, successfully introduced the Lakbay Grande Deals.

Last year, the fair was held in Manila for the first time, enabling the exhibitors to engage in face-to-face transactions with a much bigger market in the metropolis.

Attracting both local and foreign visitors, the event helped northern Luzon post a 33-percent increase in visitor arrivals during the year.

For more information on the event, contact Afro Asian World Events at 02 523-6537 or 02 523-7501, e-mail at info@afroasianworldevents.com or visit taranasanorte.tumblr.com.