DOT presents fresh take on PH tourism campaign

NEW CAMPAIGN LOGO Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat and Interior Secretary Eduardo Año present the revitalized logo of the Department of Tourism’s “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” campaign during its unveiling on Monday at the National Museum of Natural History in Manila.

Will the new logo and new font attract more tourists?

Tourism officials on Monday unveiled a fresh take on its campaign slogan, “It’s More Fun in the Philippines,” featuring real photos, videos and reviews crowdsourced from real people, in a bid to lure more tourists.

The slogan also dropped the brightly colored “banig” (sleeping mat) style logo in favor of a minimalist one inspired by locally woven textiles.

It bid goodbye to the Harabara font and adopted a new customized typeface called Barabara, which is drawn from the Filipino style of hand lettering typically seen on iconic jeepneys.

Crowdsourced

“It’s a 100-percent crowd-sourced campaign made entirely by people who have experienced firsthand why it’s more fun in the Philippines,” Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said.

Creative agency BBDO Guerrero again conceptualized the campaign after bagging the P250-million contract. It drew up the original “more fun” slogan in 2012 under then Secretary Ramon Jimenez.

It will be launched internationally in March at the ITB Berlin (Internationale Tourismus-Börse Berlin), the world’s largest tourism trade fair.

Puyat said she retained the seven-year-old slogan “because it has worked” and for the sake of continuity, noting that other countries stuck to their brands for better recall.

Despite criticisms of its similarity to the 1951 tourism slogan of Switzerland, Puyat said, “The Philippines already fully embraced the hashtag, and we made it our own.”

Since the slogan’s launch in 2012, tourist arrivals in the country have been on an upswing, posting a record-high 7.1 million in 2018.

While record-breaking, last year’s arrivals fell short of the 7.4-million target set under the National Tourism Development Plan, which officials partly blamed on the six-month closure of Boracay Island.

8.2M tourists this year

While other tourist destinations are being rehabilitated, Puyat expressed confidence that arrivals would hit 8.2 million this year.

Both the new logo and typeface are available for download on www.itsmorefuninthephilippines.com “for everyone to share and so we can all be part of the fun.”

“We are coming into 2019 with a renewed and refreshed sense of purpose. With more and more travelers conscious about their ecological footprint, the cultures and experiences they are consuming, and simply wanting to know how they can give back, the time is ripe for a repurposing of the word ‘fun,’” Puyat said.