TACLOBAN CITY—The Department of Tourism (DOT) regional office in Eastern Visayas launched a “localized” version of “Bring Home A Friend” (BHAF) campaign in an attempt to bring in more visitors to the region that could help spur local economy.
Karen Tiopes, tourism regional director, said she expects the campaign to help increase tourist arrivals by 3 percent to 5 percent more than the expected number of tourists within the campaign period. The DOT launched the six-month BHAF program that will run from October 15, 2017 to April 15, 2018.
But while the nationwide BHAF campaign focuses on bringing foreign tourists to the country, the local campaign in the region targets local tourists.
Tourist arrival in the region has been steadily increasing every year from 2011 to 2016, data from the DOT regional office showed.
In a five-year period, between 2011 and 2016, tourist arrivals in Eastern Visayas increased by 336 percent, from 365,467 in 2012 to 1,229,598 in 2016, when the huge inflow of visitors recorded after the Supertyphoon Yolanda hit the region.
DOT data also indicated that between 2013 to 2016, the total number of foreign visitors was consistently below 5 percent of the total number of tourists. Last year, of the 1,229,598 tourists, only 50,547 were foreigners or 4.11 percent of the visitors.
Tiopes said while Yolanda was the biggest disaster to hit the region, it also made Eastern Visayas known in other parts of the world, a fact that could be used to bring in more tourists.
“Yolanda placed us in the map. It may have been sad news because it was a disaster but then the entire world got to know us. Maybe that was the break that we needed,” she said.
She added that many local officials now believe tourism is an important economic driver, especially in rural communities that have the potential but remained underdeveloped.
“Many local government units are now realizing that tourism is a key to their local development, especially that we have many areas that have remained underdeveloped,” Tiopes said.
DOT data showed tourist receipts consistently increased during the last five years. In 2016 tourist receipts in Eastern Visayas amounted to P11.7 billion.
The BHAF program was first implemented in 1994 by the DOT under former Secretary Mina T. Gabor to encourage Filipinos to invite their foreign friends to come and visit the Philippines.
The Filipino sponsors, who either reside in the country or overseas, stand to win an array of prizes, including a condominium from Megaworld Corp., a brand-new Toyota Vios and a P200,000 gift certificate at Duty-Free Philippines. Their foreign guests can win round-trip international flight tickets and tour packages to Palawan, Cebu and Davao.
To join, the sponsor must register via the BHAF Web page accessible via DOT’s web site tourism.gov.ph. Registration may also be accomplished at BHAF booths soon to be set up at selected international airports in the Philippines.
The number of eligible entries will also depend on the points they earn corresponding to the guest’s country of origin: Asia and Oceania/Australia: 2; Africa, Middle East, Europe and America: 3. The more foreign friends the sponsors invite, the more entries they can submit.
Based on the 2015 report of the Department of Foreign Affairs, there are 9.1 million overseas Filipinos. More than 3 million reside in the United States of America, while more than 2 million are based in the Middle East. Other countries with large numbers of Filipinos are Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Italy and Australia.