23 October 2014 - On September 25, the Philippine Embassy in Lisbon, Portugal successfully organized and conducted a tourism seminar to promote the Philippines as a travel destination to the Portuguese market. The seminar was conducted by the Embassy in collaboration with Quadrante, a Portuguese tourist operator, and Air France / KLM. The seminar was held at the Hotel Myriad Sana in Lisbon, Portugal.
The seminar was attended by around 100 persons. About 45 Lisbon-based travel agencies were represented. Also present were the general sales agents of Philippine Airlines and Cathay Pacific, representatives from Fundacion Inatel and journalists from Portuguese travel magazines Ambitur and Publituris.
The seminar’s objective was to present and promote the Philippines as a travel destination for the Portuguese market and to facilitate the development of linkages between Portuguese travel agencies and Philippine tour operators and tourist establishments so that tour packages for the Portuguese market can be developed and promoted by the participating Portuguese travel agencies.
Philippine Ambassador to Portugal Philippe J. Lhuillier stated, “Tonight, we are offering to you the Philippines as a product for your business. It is something new to offer to your clients and also to attract new clients with. I strongly believe that this is a very good product worthy of your consideration.”
Ambassador Lhuillier further noted that, “With this seminar we aim to give you a better appreciation of the Philippines. We will also provide information that will be useful in terms of developing packages for travel to the Philippines that can then be promoted to your clients. We can then all work together to develop and market this product for our mutual benefit.”
After the Ambassador’s opening remarks, Quadrante and Air France/KLM conducted a multi-media presentation to convince the travel agents why they should market the Philippines as a travel destination. The presentation also provided useful information for the travel agents such as how to get there and sample packages for specific tourist destinations in Luzon, the Visayas and Palawan. An 8-page catalog and information brochure in Portuguese was distributed to the seminar participants. The information used during the presentations and for the catalog/brochures were taken from materials provided by the Philippine Department of Tourism’s London Office.
That presentation was followed by a visual presentation by Portuguese photo-journalists Marco Pereira and Sara Wong, who shared their personal insights and experience about their travels to the Philippines. Mr. Pereira and Ms. Wong have done more than 30 articles on the Philippines in various Portuguese print publications since 2007. They talked about their pleasant experience exploring and discovering the Philippines, at the same time showing photos they have taken to provide a visual reference for the seminar participants.
The “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” video of Department of Tourism (DOT) was shown to conclude the seminar. This was followed by a brief cocktail and a dinner. Towards the end of the dinner, raffle prizes were donated, including a roundtrip airline ticket to the Philippines from KLM. END
