Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo. ACE MORANDANTE/Presidential Photographers Division
BAGUIO CITY—Saying her task was not to keep a headcount of tourist arrivals, Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo announced the establishment of tourism media to help push the country “into the global radar” so tourism could improve local economies and serve as a poverty alleviation tool.
“Since Day 1 [of my appointment as secretary], I had only one goal in mind—to rally [everyone] behind one simple idea, that tourism [promotion] is a shared responsibility,” Teo said in her address to the annual Media Congress organized by the Media Specialists of the Philippines at Camp John Hay here last week.
Teo said her mandate “is not only to improve statistics but to make a difference by translating [tourism arrivals into] profitable income and employment.”
Tourism potentials
To muster support, she said she had directed the regional offices of the Department of Tourism (DOT) to establish their respective tourism media, hoping to let reporters get a “first-hand grasp of newsworthy tourism potentials in the regions.”
She said she viewed media as “great influencers and thought leaders” who would trigger change “and build a nation that we can all be proud of [by providing news that are] accurate, impartial and development-oriented in transforming lives.”
According to her, the DOT has revived a tourism referral incentive program called “Bring Home a Friend,” which was introduced by former Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor.
She said the DOT was also designing programs that would allow “indigent Filipinos to partake in the tourism industry” by investing government resources in rural communities using P677 billion, which President Duterte pledged to raise for tourism.
Latest DOT campaign
The DOT’s latest tourism advertising campaign, “When you’re with a Filipino, you’re with family,” was conceived because it highlighted homegrown Filipino values, she said.
The commercial features the mother of a family who offered a Caucasian tourist a snack of yam when he wandered near a river.
The tourist asked his guide what the woman meant when she called him “anak.” The guide answered that she called the tourist her child.
Teo said the commercial built upon “what other countries had failed to see” about the Philippines, which was its people.
She said the country’s welcoming nature was its strongest and most enduring brand quality.