Searching for ‘Love the Philippines’

Tourists, especially from Western countries, interested to travel anywhere in Southeast Asia will more often than not start with a website search. With the latest Philippine tourism campaign “Love the Philippines” launched, I just had to see how the official gateway, www.philippines.travel, looked like, and how it compares with other SEA countries’ travel websites.

The main image on the opening page is interesting enough with the colors of the campaign slogan jumping out from a background of the deep blue of an undersea dive. However, on a minimized screen, the menu buttons at the top page are not apparent, which is a pity since the header is what visitors usually look for.

But even on a full screen, the black background of the main menu buttons are not noticeable given the splash of lively colors of the slogan and a pseudo-menu that provides visitors a choice of what they can do if they decide to go to the Philippines.

Navigating the whole site can be confusing and exasperating. While the first three subjects in the main menu (See and Do, Where to Go, Events and Festivals) fairly do a good job of posting beautiful images, getting out of the loops of visuals can be a challenge.

The biggest let-down for a visitor, though, will be a dearth of information on how to get to the Philippines or to a certain local destination. A search query on how to go to a chosen site will more often yield pages where the words “how to go” or “how to get” appear, although not necessarily to what one wants to visit.

Hooks to nowhere

On the main menu of philippines.travel, a button for 7,641 islands can be found. Clicking on this takes one to a totally new site, www.7641islands.ph, which contains more information about places in the Philippines. The site’s title is not catchy enough or one that is quickly visible when doing a search about visiting the Philippines.

A cursory review of the site reveals a hodgepodge of entries where the Sights menu, for example, contains a collection of videos and photos. Unfortunately, these too don’t share any information on how to get to the featured places.

By not being able to provide more information on a certain site on the link, the chance that the potential visitor will leave the page and navigate to another site to get more information poses a risk that his or her attention will be waylaid by another tourist attraction, which could be in another country.

Most of our neighbors are aggressively marketing their own respective tourist destinations, and the prestige to be the country on the top searches for travel to Southeast Asia is extremely keen. Sadly, Philippine destinations are often not found in the most prominent spots.

Incidentally, www.itsmorefuninthephilippines.co.uk by the Philippine Department of Tourism Embassy in the UK offers a far more respectable site that allows potential tourists, especially those who are just trying to squeeze in a few more days of their business trip for leisure, to make a quick decision on where to go.

The two official travel sites to the Philippines, including 7641islands.ph, should attempt to be hooks that lead to a decision to travel to the country. Enthralling site visitors to our sights, adventures, food, culture, and people is fine, but information on how visitors can navigate their way to the Philippines’ many islands must be easily available.

Getting there

Of the five other countries in the region that we compete against for tourist arrivals (Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia), navigating www.indonesia.travel seemed the most uncomplicated. The main menu gives you a good bird’s eye view of what the country is offering after a brief scan.

For first time tourists, the section on destination highlights just 10 places to visit and gives a visitor a chance to quickly decide where to go. Best of all, all locations give a general idea of how to travel to the locale from an international port.

www.tourism.thailand.org seems too commercialized, and its slogan “Amazing Thailand” has somehow been lost amidst all the promo pitches. It has a virtual tour section of four places in four provinces, although it does not seem interesting enough.

Some outdated posts on events and promos are still available for clicking, a bad sign that the Thailand tourism authority has been remiss in updating not only its website, but even its pitches for tourist arrivals.

Thailand needs a fresh slogan, the current one being over a decade stale. Tourism was a huge contributor to Thailand’s gross domestic product (GDP) before the pandemic lockdowns, drawing in close to 40 million visitors at the close of 2019.

For Thailand, Bangkok, Phuket, and Pattaya are still destinations that rank high on the global travel index, but competition from nearby countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are eroding the number of visitors by the millions.

Unlike many of the SEA tourist sites, Cambodia’s www.tourismcambodia.com offers a no-frills peek into what interested travelers may find. Images rarely fill the whole screen, and the layout feels much like a shopping site where destinations are organized in uniform-sized columns and rows. Each destination, however, comes with enquiry forms.

Vietnam’s www.vietnam.travel has a certain gloss with video images on the main page, but there’s also little information on how to get to specific destinations. Still, Vietnam’s tourist pitches have been successful in such a short time that its tourist arrivals in 2019 had already surpassed that of the Philippines.

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Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.