Revisiting Iloilo and the VISIT ILOILO campaign.

By Charles Lim

I am delighted to know that Iloilo realized the importance and relevance to create a marketing campaign to encourage more visitors – be it for leisure, adventure or business –  to this fast paced city. With its impressive infrastructure of road networks (although some stretches may still be incomplete after a prolonged period), a promenade which is remarkably attractive and a highly developed urbanized touristic township of Megaworld, it makes plenty of sense for its tourism and investment stakeholders to  attract more visitors and investors to Iloilo.

Assembling the different components and groups of stakeholders from both the government and private sectors must have been a challenge. At the helm of this campaign is Allan Tan, President of Iloilo Festival Foundation with support from the Iloilo City Government, the Provincial Government of Western Visayas, Department of Tourism Region 6, the Tourism Promotion Board, the Iloilo MICE Alliance, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Iloilo Chapter.

“Visit Iloilo” as a theme itself reflects on certain parameters the destination has to restrict itself to. Iloilo is relatively an emerging destination to the foreign market, deep in heritage, arts and cuisine culture, strongly immersed in a hospitable community.

That’s the positive prospective. The journey now begins  with a clear challenge. Armed with a marketing slogan, what is now expected of the group, to entice visitors to the destination?

Whatever, the message of enticement is, how do you reach out to your target audience? No doubt, the target audience has been well defined. It’s always wise to start small and not be overly ambitious. For instance, you may be going up against a well-oiled MICE machinery of Manila, Cebu and most recently, the newly organized Boracay MICE Alliance.

Spend your advertising peso wisely. No doubt, “Visit Iloilo” will be launching a campaign geared towards the national and international audience. Use a PR campaign centered around social media with lots of promotional activities instead. Familiarization tours for agents and media would be more effective with participation in trade and road shows engaged in numerous B2B and B2C activities.

No doubt, we can count on the support  of the Department of Tourism (DOT) through its marketing arm, the Tourism Promotion Board, the city and province of Iloilo, but the private sector must do their share. Hotels, resorts, airlines, tour operators, pasalubong stores, transportation companies must contribute to the success of this campaign in time, money and effort.

Airlines are big players in destination marketing. Cebu Pacific’s presence at the launch augurs well for Iloilo. If you would recall CEB introduced two direct international flights to Hong Kong and Singapore during the tenure of former Director Atty. Helen Catalbas  (DOT Region 6) in 2012. Unfortunately, due to poor load factors, both these international routes had to be put on freeze. It was a welcome sight to see its Marketing Director, Michelle de Guzman seriously dabbling with the local stakeholders at the launch recently.

No doubt, yearlong activities will be planned with numerous effective crowd drawing festivals under the leadership of Allan Tan supported by Governor  Arthur Defensor Yap, Jr, Mayor Jerry Trenas, Megaworld Hotels and Resorts wonder ladies, Cleofe Albiso and Nat Lim and so many more committed individuals.

“Visit Iloilo” may also allow the destination to rebrand, if they see the necessity. Capitalizing the festival lines, vibrant entertainment hub, food tripping, adventure and sports tourism will be realistic. But do not dispel the culture and heritage image of past and recent years.

No doubt a well-planned “Visit Iloilo” campaign is a catalyst for growth. More infrastructures and investments may be absolutely relevant and imperative. We will appreciate forming a team of dedicated people to oversee this and similar projects, with regular review on performance and results, is vital to its success.

Charles Lim has run several destination campaigns for airlines, hotels and local governments in his illustrious career in the travel and hospitality industries, spanning over 40 years in Asia and Europe. He currently runs a strategic communications and marketing agency, Selrahco and is founder and chairman of the Philippine Sports Tourism Awards and the Sports Turismo Alliance, Inc  a member of the International Association of Event Hosts.