BOTH houses of Congress have committed to give a P1-billion budget to the Department of Tourism (DOT) to support the agency’s Philippines branding campaign in 2018.
In an interview with the BusinessMirror, Tourism Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Communications and Special Projects Frederick M. Alegre disclosed that the branding budget is on top of the annual budget allocated to the government agency for its operations. He also clarified that the branding budget will go to the DOT, not to its marketing arm, the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB).
While he acknowledged that this was still smaller than the promotion budgets of other Asian nations, “we’re excited about it. This will enable us to go to areas [outside the Philippines] to promote the country, and hold certain events to attract more tourists to come over,” he said. If the DOT’s budget is passed by both houses of Congress, the
P1-billion branding budget of the DOT for 2018 amounts to just $19.84 million. Published reports have estimated Thailand’s annual tourism promotions budget at about $67 million, Singapore at $80 million and Malaysia at $100 million.
Congressional hearings on the proposed National Expenditure Program for 2018 submitted by the Department of Budget and Management begin this week.
As per the National Tourism Development Plan for 2016-2022, target foreign arrivals for 2018 is 7.4 million, up from the 6.5-million goal this year. Foreign visitor receipts are estimated at P473 million in 2018 compared to the P407-million target this year.
Alegre added that any new bids for an advertising campaign this year will be for the 2018 budget. Also, he stressed that the “branding campaign will still be ‘It’s More Fun In the Philippines’”.
He said Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo wants different advertising agencies to be chosen for the various TVCs/ads that would be aired for next year’s campaign. He explained this would hopefully enable the DOT to get new and fresher concepts for the ads.
For the rest of 2017, he said the DOT will continue with its promotions of the Philippines abroad: “We’re doing projects with BBC, CNN, general media placements, bus ads, billboards. We have not stopped projects; the promotions will continue until the end of the year.”
The DOT has yet to clear up the remaining issues surrounding this year’s P650-million advertising campaign that had been awarded to the McCann Worldwide Group. One of the largest advertising agencies in the country, McCann had already produced two TV commercials for the DOT, “Anak” and “Sights”.
But the “Sights” ad led to a parting of ways between the DOT and McCann, after netizens pointed alleged that it “copied” from a South African TV ad with the same theme of a blind man enjoying sights in a destination.
After validating these claims, the DOT said it found “glaring similarities” between the “Sights” and South Africa ad, and had stopped airing the local ad. It also asked McCann to publicly apologize for the negative feedback the department received. The public apology never came though. (See, “DOT stops airing of McCann’s ‘Sights’ as unofficial tourism ad reaps praises,” in the BusinessMirror, June 15, 2017.)
An earlier interview with DOT Undersecretary for Public Affairs, Communications and Special Projects Katherine de Castro indicated that the government agency was toying with the idea of “crowdsourcing” the ads for the rest of the year. (See, “DOT mulls ‘crowdsourcing’ ads,” in the BusinessMirror, July 12, 2017.)
No other details have been yet been released on this, but Alegre said the agency “was still finishing the issues with McCann”.