WITH Asia Pacific quickly rising to popularity as a preferred destination among travelers from the US, the Department of Tourism has set its sights on ‘twinning’ Philippine destinations with those of other countries in the region.
Speaking to 40 Asian-American travel agents and media representing Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan; representatives from PAL, as well as members of the Philippine delegation, Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo solicited their support in strengthening people-to-people exchanges and tourism activities between the Philippines and their countries during the Philippine business mission held Monday in San Jose, California.
“There is no better time than now to leverage on the dawning of the Asian century. As early as 2014, the other side of the world like the US has begun discovering and rediscovering the Philippines, placing us on the top four preferred destinations along with China, India, and Japan,” Teo said.
According to Teo, travelers from the US visiting the Philippines usually connect through Hong Kong, while some of them fly next to Singapore.
Citing a 2016 DoT survey, she said these US travelers also prefer Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur as connecting flights to the Philippines.
Teo said: “It is also interesting to note that 15.80 percent of these travelers from the US consider other traditional domestic destinations such as Cebu other than Manila; Palawan (9.30 percent), while 6.60 percent of them go to Pampanga—which has strong affinity with Clark, Subic, and La Union, especially among Amer-Asian descents of former US servicemen—and 6.50 percent still consider Boracay a favorite choice.
“And I am confident that this will continue to be commonplace, as our country’s air carriers like Philippine Airlines continue to expand its services in connecting our primary and secondary gateways.”
She added: “Asia Pacific is considered an ‘exotic area,’ and everybody now is looking at the region as their new destination, particularly most Americans who have been to Europe, South America. And it is only now that they are able to discover the Asia-Pacific region.
“While destination twinning has already been an established program of the DoT in the recent years, we have been working to expand the reach of this strategy to new emerging markets like Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia, among others.
“I have personally instructed our overseas offices to beef up their respective networks and hone them along the way. And in the case of San Francisco, this is the very first time they are touching base with Thai and Vietnamese travel markets, only this year.
“Our target for them is to increase these markets by 10 percent in the next two years.
Purificacion Molintas, DoT Attache in San Francisco, said: “We will take advantage of the Americans’ interest on the Philippines, we should strike while the iron is hot and craft all the strategies that can capture the market to the Philippines.”
Molintas explained that the DoT San Francisco had started implementing this “twin-destination” promotions in collaboration with DoT Los Angeles targeting Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, citing California, along with Vancouver, among hosts of the most diverse Asian diasporas in North America, making them perfect markets for the program.
