It’s More Fun In The Philippines!

Well, our Department of Tourism guys finally came up with a new slogan to promote Philippine tourism. As the blog title says above:

It's More Fun In The Philippines!

They got some a lofty goal, about 3 or 4 million more tourists or similar by this year. Seems tough, but someone’s got to start somewhere. Might as well start big, too.

To be expected, I’ve seen lots of people online talking about it and especially criticizing the slogan. Someone pointed out that it’s the same as a 1951 Switzerland slogan: it’s more fun in Switzerland.

I guess their main, consistent complaint is lack of originality. On that, they’re arguably right.

As DOT eventually commented, they didn’t know about that until it was pointed out to them. But I agree with them that the phrase “it’s more fun” is common and isn’t exclusive to anybody anywhere.

What especially caught my attention was the DOT Secretary’s pointing out that the slogan essentially “captures” the feeling one can have when visiting the Philippines, especially the “fun” scenic spots like waterboarding in Camarines Sur and our world-reknowned beach of Boracay. They’re also mainly targetting foreigners.

That makes sense. Although I’m no advertising or marketing expert, I’ve since learned that any compaign like that is made to target or cater to somebody or a specific group’s interests.

I think this campaign will work. If anything, many people are seemingly criticizing the “form” rather than the “substance” of the campaign slogan.

Sigh, it’s a sign of one of our long-time nasty traits or habits: the crab-pulling mentality. Anytime someone is bound to be successful, others try to pull you down.

If you think about it, any country around the world has its own share of bad things. Their tourism slogans aim to emphasize the positive rather than the negative.

Personally, though, I think the slogan can be simpler like “Fun Philippines!” or even “Smiling Philippines!”. The latter will especially capture the Filipino penchant for smiling, even during realistically harsh times.

I’d say let’s give this campaign a chance. The DOT people, after all, are charged with promoting the country and boosting tourism, so at least they’re doing their function as expected.
The rest – like security and accessibility – are up to the other agencies designated to handle them. Time for them to do their part as well and step up!

At any rate, I wish our DOT well and hope this indeed works out.


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