It's More Fun in the Philippines

"It's more fun in the Philippines" - it's the new slogan of the Philippines' Department of Tourism.  The slogan is intended to boost the number of foreign visitors in the country.  Way before it was officially launched, the slogan already had leaked to social networking sites.  This was considered as a free publicity by Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr.

 

The leakage led to debates regarding if the slogan is catchy or a copycat.  Others said it was fine & emphasized more on the Filipino people.  Wherein when foreigners visit the Philippines, they would see that it's more fun to be with a Filipino rather than be with any other raise in the world.  Critics said, it was a copycat from several slogans of other countries.  The most noted was Switzerland's slogan "It's more fun in Switzerland" back in the 40's or 50's.

Seriously, if it's really a copycat or not, the important thing is it really shows the feeling of being here in the Philippines.  It focuses more on "the people" - "the Filipino people".  To whom the word "fun" refers to.

In all aspects of life, there will always be critics.  They're criticizing you because you're noticeable.  Same goes with the DOT's new slogan "It's more fun in the Philippines".

Unlike the previous DOT slogan "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" which received numerous criticism that it's an exact copy of Poland's tourism campaign, I think this new one will help in achieving the Philippines' goal in attracting 10 million tourists by 2016.

It really made an impact to the online world when it was officially launched last week.  It trended worldwide when it was launched in Twitter.

A DOT spokesperson stated that the DOT funded PhP500 million for the marketing and promotion of the "It's more fun in the Philippines" slogan this year.  The amount will be allotted for travel fairs, road shows, print production, audio-visual materials, development of the website (http://www.itsmorefuninthephilippines.com/).  It will also include traditional media including TV, brochures and maps.

At the moment, DOT is focusing in spreading the word through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Eventually, the 25 million or so Filipino Facebook users will hold a big role in advertising the said slogan.

So what's fun in the Philippines? - it's the PEOPLE.