Piolo Pascual is the newest tourism ambassador of the Philippines as announced by the Department of Tourism (DoT) when it recently launched its Bring Home A Friend to the Philippines campaign. One of Piolo’s first exposures in the role is in the Bring Home A Friend (BHAF) music video where he sings the official theme song composed and arranged by Kiko Salazar. The movie shows footage of popular tourist destinations, including Boracay, Davao and, Palawan.
https://www.facebook.com/DepartmentOfTourism/videos/vb.197186436974903/1935127679847428/?type=2&theater
BHAF is a rewards program that seeks to promote travel to the Philippines by encouraging Filipinos or expatriates in the Philippines to invite their friends abroad with these four simple steps: Invite, Accept, Travel and Register. Any eligible ‘sponsor’ and ‘invitee’ can join and get a chance to win prizes. The program will run for six months starting from October 2017 up to April 2018.
The incentive travel program was first launched by former Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor in 1994. Because of its success 23 years ago, the current DoT Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo has relaunched it. According to DoT, word-of-mouth plays a very big role in motivating tourists to visit the Philippines. Based from the DoT 2016 Visitors Sample Survey, 51.8% of tourists came to the Philippines upon their friend’s recommendation, while 14.1% have friends or relatives in the country.
DoT has a dedicated website for its BHAF campaign. Check it out to learn more about it:Â https://bringhomeafriend.online/
