10 May 2018 – The Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur reported that the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) conducted a Sales Mission to Malaysia, which was held on May 8 at the Sunway Putra Hotel.

The mission aimed to promote the Philippines as an ideal leisure and Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) destination. It included a series of sales presentations, networking opportunities and business-to-business (B2B) activities for both segments of leisure and MICE.

Philippine Ambassador to Malaysia Charles Jose gave the welcome remarks. 

Also present were Tourism Marketing Director Dato Melissa Ong, TPB-International Promotions officers headed by Officer-in-Charge Nerissa Juan, 19 private sector partners from the Philippines and around 170 Malaysian tour operators from the general and MICE sectors.  

In his remarks, Ambassador Jose made a pitch to promote the Philippines both as a leisure and a MICE destination.

“Malaysia continues to be an important and strong market for us. It was one of our top 10 major sources of tourists last year, as we welcomed close to a 150,000 Malaysians in 2017, easily crossing the 100,000-mark for the fifth straight year.  In the first two months of this year, we have already registered more than 24,000 arrivals from Malaysia, which makes 2018 a potentially good year as well.” he said.

“As we all know, the most popular tourist destination Boracay has been closed temporarily to give it time to heal and recover from the unregulated development and environmental damage that island-paradise has suffered over the past years. We are looking at the case of Boracay as more of an opportunity to make it a better place with upgraded facilities and services and at the same time to promote our other lesser known but equally beautiful tourist destinations such as Cebu, Bohol and Palawan that can rival Boracay’s beauty,” he added.

“Our DOT is also promoting the Philippines as an ideal meeting MICE destination, as we recognize the value of hosting international events and conferences.  Apart from the prestige that they bring to the country, MICE has proven to draw in the tourists and generate much-needed dollar revenues for our tourism and allied industries,” Ambassador Jose stated.

During the event, raffle draws where also given to the participants.  Prizes include vacation packages, hotel accommodations, amenities and airline ticket. END