If I Were Tourism Secretary...(Part 1)

Long term, I would set up an office under the DoT whose sole purpose is the creation, marketing and protection of Brand Philippines. Many countries already do that. The DoT has many departmental concerns to address and the marketing of Brand Philippines is only one of them. Creating and protecting Brand Philippines is a gargantuan task that requires a number of people dedicated only to doing that function.

I’d commission an intensive market research that includes a brand audit. How does the global community view the Philippine brand? Where are we now in their minds? Find answers to all the basic marketing and branding questions that is needed in order to conceptualize a new marketing campaign.

I would review past tourism marketing campaigns. Figure out what worked and what didn’t. Go to my tourism data and analyze it in terms of the current situation. Have a discussion with my boss regarding his tourism vision. Talk to stakeholders and get their visions for their own companies or organizations. That way, when I conceptualize my marketing strategy, I can align it with their visions so that it becomes a win-win reality for everybody.

I’d require an inventory of our tourism assets. What do we have now that tourists can appreciate? What else can we offer them? What are we prepared to offer them? What we have and what we are prepared to offer are 2 different things. We may have a fabulous virgin beach but we might not want tourists trampling through that. If we don’t want to sell it, don’t market it. We don’t have to sell every conceivable tourism asset we have. We just have to choose which brings the most ROI to us.

If we want to offer something new, are we prepared to make the proper investments for it? Is it even profitable to create this new tourism offering? For a time, everyone wanted to construct a wakeboarding facility following CamSur’s success. Why would you even offer that if your area has the Pacific Ocean in front of you? It is a costly endeavor to turn a weakness into strength. Instead, turn what you have into a unique advantage or create a stronger position than your competitors.

I would conceptualize a strategic tourism marketing plan based on the intensive market research done, our tourism asset inventory, the tourism data we have, lessons learned from past tourism campaigns and the vision of all stakeholders. Needless to say, the strategic tourism marketing plan would include all the basics: external analysis; internal analysis; competitive analysis; identification, definition and segmentation of target markets; forecasts; revenue computations; distribution channels; communications plan; tactics; controls; monitoring; etc. etc. etc.

I’d prepare the product. You cannot implement a marketing plan if your product is not ready or does not exist. The product in this case is the Philippines, the Philippine government, the Philippine business community and the Filipino people. We talk about the revenue that tourism will bring. Are we prepared to pay the price that tourism revenue will create?

We scoff at our 3 million visitors when compared to other Asian countries. If we target 10 million tourists, do we have it in us to deliver a memorable Philippine experience to them? A huge figure on one’s forecast looks wonderful on paper but reality can bite when it actually happens. Oscar Wilde says, “When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers.” We should all think about that first before we target huge numbers of tourist arrivals.

Then, I will go to my creative team and task them to execute the campaign’s communications plan which should include a brand manual. Marketing materials including the logo and slogan is useless without a solid marketing strategy behind it that’s ably supported by all the stakeholders. The logo and slogan is the least of our concerns if we do not have a marketing plan yet. Both are simply results of a marketing strategy. You do not begin your strategy by conceptualizing marketing materials because how would you know what you should create that your target market would find appealing enough to try?

After which, I shall test all my communications materials. I’d send my marketing plan to my boss for review and approval. I’d ask for the marketing budget I stipulated to implement it.

Only then will I have my P3.5 million marketing roll-out.

The marketing process does not end with the launch. The launch simply signals the beginning of the more challenging part – implementation. Ultimately, all marketing activities (branding, advertising, PR, etc, etc, etc) should result to only one thing: revenue. That is the only objective of marketing and the only measure of its success. In marketing, awards don’t mean anything if ROI is not achieved.

No, it takes more than 4 months to pull this off. Most likely, we will not see the results until the end of this administration’s term. If we strategize well and implement it properly, it is the next administration that will actually reap the benefits of our strategic tourism marketing plan.

Yes, it’s a bitter pill to swallow but such is marketing. The human brain will accept what it wants to accept when it is ready to do so and not a moment before.

A national tourism marketing campaign is a mammoth task whose sheer complexity cannot be conveyed by a mere blog post or 140 Twitter characters. Whether we like it or not, there is a marketing process to be followed. To circumvent that process will simply lead to another mess and a useless waste of taxpayers’ money.

Could I do a better job than any DoT secretary we’ve had including Bert Lim? Hell, no. For a campaign of this magnitude, you need political muscle. I don’t know politics and Botox is expensive.