Digital promotion

Body urges tourism offices to use social media

TOURISM offices in Mindanao should minimize production of pamphlets and brochures but instead go into digital tourism, said Mindanao Tourism Council (MTC) official.

“In the MTC, we no longer encourage tourism offices to just be contented with your pamphlets in your office because actually less than 10 percent of the tourists get information from you. And pamphlets with their very noisy lay out and expensive production cost… are sometimes just thrown away. So stop producing pamphlets, stop producing brochures. They are no longer effective,” said MTC Executive Director Jonallier Mana-ay Perez during the Kapehan sa Dabaw press conference held at SM City Davao yesterday, April 2.

Specifically, Perez said tourism offices in Mindanao should actively start using social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube as usual websites are expensive to maintain and may not be as up to date as Facebook.

According to Perez, they have realized that about 70 percent of the tourists get their information from Facebook, 20 percent on travel agencies, and only less than 10 percent from tourism offices of the government. Taking advantage of this statistics, Perez said respective tourism offices should really go digital.

“Given limited budget, we encourage them to shift from traditional promotions and instead use Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube…Imagine almost half of the things we find on Facebook timeline are about travel experiences. Most of the travelers also trust their friends and colleagues that they find on Facebook. So it is that powerful,” he added.

In this time of fastpaced development and a need to be up to date, Perez said social networking

ing sites are better marketing and tourism promotional tools.

“With Facebook and cheap cellphones nowadays, you can easily upload, say, a 5+1 promo in the resorts. Or maybe suddenly tomorrow, you want want a 20 percent discount in the hotel rates. You can easily do that,” he said emphasizing on the fact that uploads on Facebook takes only a few minutes to reach the tourists’ attention.

To further support this campaign, Perez said they plan to launch Mobile Tourism School in the rural areas in Mindanao on April 10 onwards starting with Surigao del Norte. JPA