Want to make your boss happy, for a change? Bring him to the Philippines. He enjoys and gets a chance to win a prize; so will you.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) has officially launched, in the UAE, a campaign promoting the Philippines through its “best assets,” the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) – all 9.1 million of them across the world, including the over 2 million in the Middle East.
Dubbed, “Bring Home a Friend,” the program is a rehash of a similar one in 1994 under then DOT Secretary Mina Gabor, which ran for a year, and is seen to boost the department’s aim to bring seven million tourists to the Philippines by the end of this year.
‘The invited foreigner also stands to win a business class airline ticket, a stay at a deluxe hotel in Manila and tour packages at high-end resort in Palawan, Cebu or Davao.
“(Current) DOT Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo sees that the best way to promote the Philippines is by its best assets, which are our OFWs,” Stalingrad Samson, DOT desk officer for the Middle East, said in an interview during the festive launch event held on Oct. 21 at Asiana Hotel’s Boracay Club in Deira, Dubai.
All an OFW needs to do is visit the DOT’s www.bringhomeafriend.online which is accessible through the department’s website, tourism.gov.ph and send an invite to their foreigner friends who will then be contacted via a link.
The invitee will need to show proof of visit like stamped passport while the OFW who sent the invite will get an electronic ticket qualifying him for the raffle draw in April next year, Samson explained.
He said the invited foreigner also stands to win a prize, among which is a business class ticket, a stay at a deluxe hotel in Manila and tour packages at high-end resort outside Manila – Palawan, Cebu or Davao.
The OFW, on the other hand, can win a condominium from Megaworld Corporation, a brand new Toyota Vios, and a PHP200,000 gift certificate at Duty-Free Philippines. One winner will be drawn per region – Middle East and North America among them.
DOT said 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.
Conversely, the more foreign friends the sponsors invite, the more entries they can submit, DOT also said.
Based on the 2015 report of the Department of Foreign Affairs, there are 9.1 million overseas Filipinos. Over three million are in the US while more than two million are based in the Middle East, including approximately one million in the UAE.
Other countries with large numbers of Filipinos are Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Italy, and Australia. Samson said DOT has launched the campaign in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the US, Canada and Japan.
He said DOT will be utilizing the social media to sustain the promo. Glenn Johnston, VP for Corp. Communications and General Manager for the Middle East office of Aviareps, a public relations company overseeing the DOT program said he is optimistic and confident of its success in the UAE, considering the Filipinos’ love for the social media. “We are very optimistic, the reason being is because the Filipino community here in the Middle East are social media-savvy,” he said.
The Philippines has seen a consistent growth in tourist arrivals from the Middle East. In 2016, the country welcomed a total of 83,546 tourists from the region, growing by 9.69% over 2015. Tourist arrivals from Saudi Arabia and UAE, the two largest markets out of the region for the Philippines, reached 50,884 and 16,881 respectively.
