DAVAO from mice to MICE

a valuable preview of how MICE development might impact the city’s growth as a tourist destination.

1996

Dato Seri Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia made a historic visit to Davao on February 6, 1996, to launch together with President Fidel V. Ramos the Brunei Darussalam–Indonesia–Malaysia–Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA). BIMP-EAGA was established by the four countries as a common goal to hasten socioeconomic development of their geographically remote areas that are far from capital cities. This cooperation was a boon to Davao and Mindanao as regional and international MICE became regular fare and direct air connections to Indonesia and Malaysia boosted trade and tourism.

2006

In August 2005, Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano announced that Davao City would host the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) from January 19 through 21, 2006.

Mayor Rodrigo Duterte accepted the challenge of hosting the ATF for the first time after Metro Manila and Cebu in 1992 and 1996, respectively. He spearheaded the preparations together with the Department of Tourism and the tourism private sector of Davao, a default multisectoral setup the city would adopt in future MICE activities.

The nine-day ATF involved meetings of the tourism ministers of the 10 ASEAN member-countries as well as of China, Japan and Korea, and a travel mart attracting hundreds of tourism sellers and buyers from many parts of the world.

2013

Davao City won the bid to host its first-ever MICECON from March 6 through 9, 2013. MICECON is a program of the Department of Tourism and its marketing arm, Tourism Promotions Board, intended to bolster MICE business in the country.

President Benigno Aquino III opened the conference as keynote speaker with a host of local and international experts as resource persons all throughout the four-day high profile gathering.

The city’s hosting was lauded as a benchmark for future host destinations. Davao’s united front in showcasing a destination prepared for bigger MICE with new hotels, venues, tourist attractions, and strong safety and security management success factors. Add the unique brand of Davao hospitality.

A major part of the celebration was the use of the newly-opened 7,000 square-meter SMX Convention Center Davao purposely built in anticipation of strong demand for convention and special events space in the city.

2022

The Davao City government, private stakeholders and its MICE Committee, Department of Tourism, and Tourism Promotions Board launched the Davao MICE Strategic Master Plan in consonance with a MICE Ordinance that shall further holistically develop Davao for MICE and secure a great future for Davao MICE.

2023

This year, the MICE industry in the Philippines is declaring: It’s MICE to be back! as Davao hosts a new MICECON blazing new trails in this new season of our lives.

Truly, it is mice to MICE for Davao!

with airports and airlines to reinstate discontinued routes and secure new air services. It has done this through marketing efforts locally and globally, regional travel exchanges and business-to-business meetings, joint campaigns, international roadshows, and familiarisation tours for agents and media,” Routes Asia announced.

Manila to host Rotary International convention 2028

Rotary International announced Manila, Philippines as the winner of the provisional bid to hold its annual international convention, 3-8 June 2028, which is set to be the largest and most multicultural gathering ever hosted in the country.

More than 25,000 Rotary members and participants from around the world are expected to gather in Manila to connect, learn from each other and various experts, and share ideas for bringing positive, lasting change to communities around the world. The annual Rotary convention is held in different cities around the world, and Rotary’s 119th convention is the first to be held in Manila.

The winning bid was led by Rotary regional leader, Past District Governor Samuel D. Pagdilao, Jr. and supported by Rotary clubs in the Philippines. Various public agencies including the Department of Tourism, the Tourism Promotions Board Philippines, and other MICE industry stakeholders also contributed to the successful bid.

“We are delighted and honored to receive the Rotary International’s vote of confidence to host its 119th convention, and we share with the Tourism Promotions Board the excitement of welcoming Rotary’s roster of distinguished members from around the world,” said Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco of the Philippine Department of Tourism.

PHL bags back to back wins in Routes Asia 2023

Returning for the first time since 2019, the Routes Asia 2023 Awards, held in Thailand, recognize the incredible work carried out by airlines, airports and destinations in 2022 along with their ongoing strategy for 2023.

The Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) was named winner in the Destination category. The Philippines bested three other countries, namely the Japan National Tourism Organization, Ministry of Tourism Indonesia, and the Singapore Tourism Board for its persistence, “in its efforts to partner

In the Under 5 Million Passenger Category, Mactan-Cebu International Airport was named the winner. GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation (GMCAC) has always taken a two-pronged approach to route development: airline marketing to create supply and destination marketing to ensure the sustainability of its airline partners' presence and address the demand for air services.

HSMA-PHILTOA forges partnership for travel exchange

In the quest to strengthen and revive domestic travel, tourism and hospitality, the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association (HSMA) Philippines and the Philippine Tour Operators Association (PHILTOA) inked a historical partnership for the upcoming PHILTOA-HSMA Travel Exchange on March 28-29, 2023.

Exclusive to members only, the two-day affair will see HSMA’s over 150 properties engaging in B2B set up with more than 150 PHILTOA members as they discover and form synergies to boost domestic travel through their destinations and services. This revenue-generating event was conceptualized by their respective boards to provide more avenues in driving success for their members. HSMA president Loleth So said, “It’s about time that HSMA and PHILTOA venture with our hotel members. What we can do for your agents, and what your agents can do for us? It’s actually perfect, we need each other that’s why we put this one together.”

DOT NCR mulls Hop-On Hop-Off venture

The Department of Tourism-National Capital Region made history as it introduced the Hop On Hop Off (HOHO) Travel by Hub Program during the membership meeting of the Philippine Tour Operators Association.

Presented by Regional Director Sharlene Zabala-Batin, the HOHO is a tour program using state of the art bus transport and a digital application where foreign and domestic tourists can enjoy the cities of Manila, Makati, Ortigas (Pasig), Katipunan (Quezon City), Bonifacio Global City (Taguig), and Pasay/Parañaque through specially-crafted tours using the hop on hop off system and a contactless payment card. This program is a showcase of Metro Manila experience through the latest technology and will provide options for a quick tour to tourists on a layover flight or have a few hours to spend on do-it-yourself tours with seamless and contactless travel system.

The estimated number of passengers per bus will be 30 pax and will run 5 trips a day, and the interval for bus stops is 30 to 45 minutes in consideration of the unpredictable traffic in the Metro. HOHO is expected to go full blast by mid-year of 2023 with Manila and Makati hubs only. It will be expanded to the other 4 hubs in the next few years. Rates and mechanics will be announced soon.

By Buddy G. Recio

In the run-up to the 2023 MICECON, Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) is faced with a stagnant ranking in the ICCA. Covid-19 pandemic has brought a stop to all global MICE activities in the last two years. The last ranking released was in 2019 wherein the Philippines was in 47th place in the world and 6th and last in the region with 71 events while Thailand had 162 and is in 27th place.

But negative feedback can be used as a learning curve, and this is what current Chief Operating Officer of Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) Chief Operating Officer, Maria Margarita Montemayor-Nograles is banking on. “To be globally competitive” is her battlecry, so this year, TPB wants to learn more to be able to give full support to the MICE campaign.

“We do not have enough market research on MICE, we do not have the numbers to tell us where to reach out to creatively find out how to bring more MICE events. We have programs that will take us to MICE conventions around the world and we are working closely with the different MICE destinations like Clark and the rest outside Manila,” COO Nograles explained.

Nograles is quick to point out that DOT Secretary Christina Frasco’s 7-point agenda will have to stay on top-of-mind.

“Anytime we do anything, it has to fall into her agenda. We have our community-based tourism programs wherein we are going into our own communities like the T’bolis of Lake Sebu, the Cordilleras, Lake Buhi in Bicol. As TPB, we come in and give them a marketing enhancement seminar. Before my work here, I was already working with the indigenous communities. We promote these communities as a destination but over and above that we work towards finding a way to give them sustainable livelihood by way of their products and promoting the destination as a cultural immersion destination,” she related.

She added, “We were just with SoFA Design Institute. They will go to these destinations as their curriculum in their schools dictate, so the young designers of the Philippines will learn about their culture, traditions, and craft so they can incorporate that into their work. That’s a program that we want to grow in the next few years to include bancas, weaving, mangroves, and the like.”

TPB in action

For his part as TPB Deputy COO, Charles Aames Bautista mentioned, “Recently we just came from PCMA which is the Professional Convention Management Association in the U.S. where we were interactive with over 2,000 international association representatives and one of our goals was what would make them do their events here. So we got a lot of information that we can pass on at the MICECON. It will be one way to make us globally competitive.”

”At The 2022 ICCA convention in Poland, if there is a challenge that we learned there, it was that the Philippines just doesn’t have enough venues. We have more than enough domestic events, PICC, SMX, Marriott, and the World Trade Center are always fully booked.”

“The biggest learning for us is the demand for sustainability. The organizers of conventions and events are literally including sustainability initiatives and programs in their bid documents. It can’t be just the usual elimination of plastics, etc., but deeper concerns like water management, material sourcing, carbon footprint. It means that it is necessary upon us that we build our own supply within the destination but as islands, we are able to do that easier. That is the beauty for our convention areas. The second thing is the specific interests in diversity, equity, and inclusion. As racism is still prevalent in other countries, one of their concerns is the diversity of the staff, so in our case since we come from multi-cultural backgrounds, that is a non-issue. Inclusivity is also a non-issue because we welcome the LGBTQ community.”

Presently, both TPB and the private sector are pinning their hopes on the youth, and it went off to a good start in 2019 when the Philippines won the AFECA Asian MICE Youth Challenge.

And as a follow-up to that, word is out that the Philippines will host the Rotary International Convention in 2028. A second bid won which has not been divulged as of press time will be held in 2025.

“The President has said that it’s the Filipino hospitality and creativity that makes us stand out as a country. We also won another bid. My team was so happy and I had no doubt that we would get that, too,” Nograles gushed.

“What made us win? Again, it is the story of the Filipino identity. They like our culture, the tradition, our being unique, let’s not be anyone else,” she added.

Tourism watchwords - Faith and spirituality, luxury, wellness Bautista enumerated three categories that will enjoy new focus, medical facilities on cosmetic surgery (all DOT accredited), and the second is spirituality.

“We have our heritage sites being pegged as pilgrimage sites like the ones they do in Italy. Because of our amazing architecture that we have for our heritage sites, we are slowly becoming destinations where they will discover their spirituality. Last year, that was one of the campaigns of TPB where we partnered with Radio Veritas and a tour operator where we did a faith tourism circuit. Next year, we are looking to expand that to create circuits in all different regions,”he revealed.

When asked the third, luxury tourism, Bautista described that luxury has been redefined. “It is not just 5-star resorts but curated experiences. These wealthy people don’t mind going on a hike as long as at the end of the hike, it’s going to be a magnificent view, Instagrammable, that they can share. That is the mindset of the luxury segment, we have a lot of that in the Philippines.”

“When tourists hear about the Philippines, it’s about beaches, resorts, diving, food. We are not placed yet in the luxury category compared to Singapore, etc. but when we talk about luxury destinations in the Philippines, it’s the 5-star to 10-star level of service. We are promoting those luxury destinations such as Banwa, Lihim, and Balesin domestically and internationally to make sure that we are capitalizing on that very niche and very important market.”

Bautista stated that TPB will be doing a show in April to promote the Philippines as a luxury destination.

“They also look at luxury wellness like The Farm. Connections is an international show done by Jacobs media in the U.K. they will be doing a show here in April. They are going to hold the first wellnessthemed “Connections” in the Philippines.” This very niche event will have 40 buyers and 40 sellers. Buyers are estimated to have a minimum spend of USD1.5 million each.

“Their show is experiential. We invited them all, working with DOT’s office of product development. We came up with a list that Jacobs Media vetted, and out of the list (50), 25 were categorized as exceptional,10 were acceptable, 15 were denied. DOT will come up with additional recommendations to add to the destinations,” he expounded.

Nograles and Bautista have high hopes for TPB as the marketing agency for Philippine tourism campaigns, marking that last year the organization finished over 200 programs, organized, supported, or coimplemented with other agencies, they exclaimed, “With only 180 workforce including the janitors, that’s how good this agency is.”

With tourism back with a vengeance, expect TPB to be hiring more staff.