Shop to the top

No wonder you are grumpy each morning. You wake up staring blankly at your closet with not a single trendy outfit in sight. Just relax and sashay your way across the hustle and bustle of the city and enter the magical world of the shopping mall — and Manila’s got pretty cool ones that will let you linger for hours.

Well, this is exactly what the Department of Tourism wants for the month of September with ShopFest 2008. By promoting Filipino brands, participating malls have their own promotions and activities planned, like special discounts. All of which carry banners, streamers, flyers for the event that will definitely boost tourism spending

“The Philippines is a value destination for shopping,” says Tourism Secretary Ace Durano. “September ShopFest 2008 is the country’s first-ever month-long shopping festival, and it is bound to be an annual festivity from here on to bring global attention to what the Philippines can offer the world in terms of value for money.”

The objective of the ShopFest is to establish the Philippines strongly and permanently in the world shopping map compared to neighboring Southeast Asian countries. From this, the country aims to generate shopping tours as another tourism product.

“We are here to push Filipino brands,” explains Durano. “We want to promote the Philippine shopping experience not just for this month, but also the whole year round by adding more products. We make sure tourists will not tire of the Philippines.”

To kick-start the event, the DOT together with Philippine Convention and Visitors Corp., and Philippine Retailers Association held the D’Great ShopTrip, an Amazing Race-type of scavenger hunt for members of the press. Here’s the rub: Participants were divided into groups of three and four and assigned to two malls. With a virtual budget of P10,000, the teams had to find the best buys for the list of items within 45 minutes per location.

My thrifty team included Sol Aragones, Rolly Marcelo and Marlon Sayson of ABS-CBN, Manila Santos of Metro Working Mom and my photographer Joven Cagande. Unfortunately, we got assigned to the farthest malls like Glorietta and Festival Mall compared to others who were near the starting point in Ortigas Center, like Robinsons Galleria and Shangri-La Plaza Mall, Eastwood City in Libis and Gateway Mall in Cubao, Sta. Lucia East in Cainta and Ever Gotesco, along Commonwealth Avenue, and Greenhills Shopping Center and Tiendesitas, along C5.

Glorietta was our first mall and we had to buy athletic gear from Chris Sports and Toby’s and a few items from Sarabia Optical. It took us 36 minutes to finish the task before heading to Festival Mall. On the road, my teammates and I were already planning our strategy but we ended up buying everything from Robinson’s Department Store. Since my team was the most kuripot virtual spenders, we won first place.

For those to want to shop their hearts out, head over to participating malls like Araneta Center, Ayala Malls, Crossings Department Store, Duty Free Philippines Fiesta Mall, Eastwood City, Ever Gotesco Department Store, Greenhills, Tiendesitas, Robinsons Malls, Rustan’s Department Store, Shangri-La Plaza, Sta. Lucia East Grandmall and SM Supermalls will promote quality Filipino products and designs that are competitively priced.

ShopFest will perk up consumer activities amid the dampening effects of the recent wave of food and oil price hikes, and contribute significantly to the DOT’s 2010 targets of some five million foreign visitor arrivals and $5 billion in tourism revenues. In fact, the DOT surpassed that target when it posted another record high of 3.09 million tourists last year.

“We simply want to keep our tourism receipts at the $5 billion mark and above all the way to 2010 through high-value tourist activities like shopping,” concludes Durano. “Doing so will help boost the income of all possible sectors of the economy.”

Shopping malls in the country will help you get the most out of the city while eluding the heat, traffic and rush hour — which is still the best place to start when pursuing your dreams.