Philippines launches ‘Bring Home A Friend’ campaign in the Middle East

CAIRO – 24 October 2017: On Saturday and in an innovative step to promote tourism to the Philippines in the Middle East, the Philippines Department of Tourism (PDOT) launched an initiative called "Bring Home A Friend," a campaign that encourages every Filipino living in the Middle East to invite their friends, family and colleagues to visit the Philippines on their next vacation.

As the press release stated "based on the 2015 report of the Department of Foreign Affairs, there are 9.1 million overseas Filipinos. More than three million reside in the U.S. while more than two million are based in the Middle East."

Secretary of the Department of Travel Wanda Tulfo-Teo was responsible for resuming the BHAF program, which was created in 1994 to help promote tourism through every citizen of Philippines who travels to another country. Teo stated, “we would like to close the year strongly for the tourism industry in terms of visitor arrivals and carry the momentum into the coming year.” The program started on October 15 and is scheduled to end by the April 15, 2018.

The campaign was launched at a glamorous event, which was held at Boracay Club, Asiana Hotel Dubai and was attended by Philippines Ambassador to the UAE Constancio Vingno Jr, Consul General Paul Raymond Cortes, campaign partners, Filipino executives, international fashion designers, Travel Trade Industry partners, and media personalities.

The Department of Tourism offers a variety of prizes to sponsors who succeed in bringing their foreign friends and family over to Philippines. The prizes include "a condominium from Megaworld Corporation, a brand new Toyota Vios, and a PHP200,000 gift certificate at Duty-Free Philippines while their foreign guests can win round-trip international flight tickets and tour packages to Palawan, Cebu, and Davao," according to a press release.

To become a sponsor, Filipino citizens in the country or overseas should register via the website

tourism.gov.ph.

or through booths, which will soon be set up at selected international airports in the Philippines.

The press release added that "the PDOT aims to achieve 7 million tourists by the end of 2017 and pro-actively developing strategic partnerships with key stakeholders in the Middle East to capture a sizeable percentage of its high-yield tourist market."