Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Case Study 3. WOW Philippines Campaign
The Philippines tourism industry has a long history of overcoming a range of
events that have restricted its potential to become a major tourism destination in
SE Asia. Political instability, AIDS, localized terrorism, especially in the large
southern island of Mindanao, natural disasters ranging from seasonal typhoons to
the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, and the 1997 Asian economic crisis all con-
tributed to acting as a brake on tourism growth. Considering all these problems,
the overall trend for tourism in the Philippines during the 1990s was positive. By
2000, inbound tourism numbers to the Philippines passed 2 million, double the
1990 level (Beirman, 2003).
In 2001 the forced resignation of President Joseph Estrada led to the appointment
and later election of Gloria Arroyo as President of the Philippines. Arroyo appointed
Richard Gordon as Secretary of Tourism. Gordon took on the position with an almost
missionary zeal to advance tourism to the Philippines as a major industry. An ener-
getic and ambitious man, Richard Gordon sought to radically alter the tourism infra-
structure and the marketing of the Philippines. He also took on a high profile in
supranational tourism organizations. In 2003 he was elected as Chairman of PATA
and rapidly became a powerful regional voice within the World Tourism Organization.
Gordon rallied the Philippines tourism industry by calling the first TRICON
(Tourism Related Industry Conference) a few months after his appointment as
Tourism Secretary in 2001. The underlying strategy to revitalize Philippines
tourism was to gather an alliance of all sectors of the tourism industry and the local
and provincial political leadership. The second and third TRICONs in 2002 and
2003 developed the concept of a marketing campaign called WOW Philippines.
The core strategy of the campaign was to diversify both the image and benefits of
inbound tourism to encompass a wide geographical area of the country. The cam-
paign sought to appeal to a variety of niche markets, including golfing, resorts,
ecotourism, meetings and conventions, business and incentive tourism, adventure
tourism, diving and water sports, cultural tourism, and to identify specific regions
of the Philippines as representative destinations for these activities. In the capital,
Manila, the Department of Tourism actively participated in restoring specific
districts of the city, most notably Intramuros (the old walled Spanish quarter of
Manila) and Manila Bay’s waterfront.
The Philippines Department of Tourism, in close association with major tour
operators, Philippine Airlines, and other carriers servicing the Philippines, offered
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a range of cut-price and value-added incentives for tourists. It also sought to
encourage the estimated 8 million Filipinos living abroad to act as tourism ambas-
sadors. The Department of Tourism, supported by the national government and the
local media, instituted educational and promotional programs designed to encour-
age locals to adopt a welcoming attitude toward tourists and to encourage hospi-
tality and cleanliness in the county’s towns and cities. The Philippines Department
of Tourism claimed a high level of success for this program.
Following the Bali bombing in October 2002, there was renewed focus on
Islamic activists in the southern Philippines by the global media and by the gov-
ernments of some of the Philippines’ most lucrative tourism source markets,
notably Japan, the United States, Western Europe, and Australia. Tourism
Secretary Richard Gordon was a vocal critic of negative media coverage and
government advisories. The primary basis of his criticism was that the reputation
of the entire country was under attack because of activities that took place in one