My Tourism Marketing Paper

Term 3 for school year 2010-2011 is almost done and one of the requirements for my personal selling class is to come up with an idea on how personal selling can help increase the number of tourists visiting the Philippines and in effect, help the tourism industry grow.


According to Economy Watch:

Tourism industry is a fast developing sector for the economy worldwide. Statistical data suggests that the tourism industry in the global scenario makes up 11% of GDP. Tourism industry trends also suggest that as many as 200 million people are engaged worldwide in the tourism industry. Statistical data opine that as many as 700 million travelers travel to international places annually.  

On the advent of globalization and introduction of budget airlines, the tourism sector experienced a huge upswing and looking at the Philippines' 2010 performance, we've had 3.52 million visitors coming from different parts of the world.


If you're not aware of the status quo, the recreation and tourism marketing of the Philippines would look great if you based it on the 3.52 million visitors but looking at the bigger picture, the numbers don't really add that much value to the entire Philippine economy. The lifestyle hasn't changed that much and most of our tourist spots are underdeveloped or overly commercialized.

Anyhoo, before I go berserk and rant about our government, let me go back to the main assignment. Our professor wanted the class to come up with an idea on how to personally sell the Philippines to foreigners. The situation is like this: Imagine yourself as a Filipino travel agent in a foreign country of your choice. And while you're there, how would you encourage foreigners to visit the Philippines. The creative execution has no limits so anything goes for this assignment.

Also, our professor gave us the liberty to choose our target market as well as the positioning of our product - in this case the Philippines.

I'm very much excited about this assignment since it's the first one we've had since day one of term 3. So I'm gonna do my best and hopefully get a good grade! (crossing my fingers for a 4.0 this term *grin* )

Nicco Joselito Lopez-Tan is currently pursuing post-graduate studies at the De La Salle Univeristy - Taft Manila, taking up Master of Marketing Communications.