Republic of the Philippines

Region V
Province of Sorsogon
Sorsogon City
Sorsogon National High School
S.Y.: 2017-2018
2nd Semester

Research Paper:

Promotional Strategies of the Province of Sorsogon’s

Tourism Department

Balmadrid, Artan L.

Bejerano, Kristia Stephanie J.

Hular, Joy Alliah U.

Don, Kathryn Chiara M.

 CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

Introduction

Tourism is an industry where countries, regions, and provinces/cities

market their unique destinations, activities, food, animals, and etc. to traveling

tourists. This is a way to benefit financially from the culture that each place has.

This is an industry that is growing steadily due to improvements in social media

and info-tech. Improvements in those fields support new techniques in marketing

and promotion of these cultures.

On an international context, tourism is traveling for fun; fun in exploring

new cultures, seeing new locations and doing new activities in different countries.

Each country can offer such fun to foreign tourists, so they compete with each

other in the market of tourists that travel every day, month, and year.

Each country has their own way to market their tourist destinations;

techniques range from word of mouth to campaigns like 1India’s “Incredible India”

campaign in 2009 and Jamaica’s “Once You Go, You Know” campaign in 2004.

Each technique embraces modern concepts like visual assets, social media,

analytics and performance tracking.

To effectively promote a place in the modern age, the campaign must

adapt to modern trends. The use of social media is the new trend in marketing,

used not only by businesses but countries, in their tourism campaign. Visual

assets like videos and pictures are used to show off the countries’ various tourist

locations and activities. Analytics and performance tracking are used to see what
is popular and how good the current campaign is. Likewise, to formulate an

effective marketing campaign, the researchers must emulate these trends.

Tropical countries like Brazil, Costa Rica, Vietnam, and Malaysia. 2Brazil

employs eco-tourism, their cultural heritage, and their culture in their tourism

campaign; different tourist spots of the country are part of the United Nations

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage

Sites due to the spots’ cultural, natural, and historical significance. 3Costa Rica

implemented “The Essential Costa Rica, My Choice, Naturally” campaign; the

campaign includes social media, and visual assets, namely ten videos

highlighting different parts of Costa Rica, to invite tourist to travel to their country.
4 Vietnam launched its own tourism campaign, “#WhyVietnam”, which takes

advantage of the emergence of social media; the campaign encourages people

to take a picture of Vietnam’s many tourist spots and post them with a caption

promoting the said place. 5 Malaysia has its own campaign called “Malaysia,

Truly Asia”, promoting the culture, cuisine, ethnic diversity, and exoticism;

Malaysia is the leader in southeast asia in number of tourist arrivals. Each of

these countries share characteristics with the Philippines, sharing the tropical

climate and focus in eco-tourism, culture, and cuisine.

On a national level, the Department of Tourism (DOT) does the campaign

work for the entirety of the Philippines. They have campaigns like “It’s more Fun

in the Philippines” and “Experience Philippines”. These campaigns include

videos, pictures with captions, and other extensive advertisements about

different locations and activities in the Philippines.

 Eco-tourism is the trend in tourism in the Philippines for the abundance of

natural resources on every part in our country thus, making us first in marine

biodiversity, second in geothermal energy, fourth in gold reserves, and fifth in

natural flora and fauna in the whole world. With these assets in the possession of

the Philippines, making eco-tourism a focal point in marketing to tourist is the

future of this country’s tourism. 6According to the definition of The International

Eco-tourism Society, Eco-tourism means “responsible travel to natural areas that

conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and

involves interpretation and education”. The Philippines steers toward

environment-friendly policies and practices to the fact that wildlife is threatened

and resources are mismanaged.

All places in the Philippines included tourism-related programs/projects

which aimed to establish their respective province as one of the premiere

destinations. In Laguna, promotions were coordinated by the provincial capital

where they envisioned rebuilding a new Laguna where productive, educated,

healthy, and morally-upright citizens work and live a prosperous, ecologically-

sound, and peaceful environment. Each place in the country markets to tourists

in different ways like Davao’s tourist travel package and 7 Pangasinan’s

launching of its own tourism website (https://pangasinan.explora.ph/). With each

city and province competing with each other, it is good to have a plan to market

Sorsogon’s identity to compete with others.

Same can be said to the regional scale, Sorsogon’s identity needs

more exposure when competing with cities like Albay, Camarines Norte and
Camarines Sur. These places have better plans for tourism than Sorsogon’s

plans, but with proper analysis and planning, Sorsogon’s plan could improve to

be better than others.

8 According to an article on January 2017 by pageone.ph, the

governors and different government sectors of the different cities and provinces

of Bicol have been working together to “make tourism a vibrant industry in the

region”. What this tells is that even when there is competition between cities and

provinces from the same region, more tourists coming to Bicol means well for the

entirety of the region.

On a provincial level, more tourists coming to Sorsogon means

more money coming to the people of Sorsogon. Tourism is a big factor in the

economy of a province and knowing how to get more tourists is profitable for the

province.
9 The province of Sorsogon on the north extends westward from

124° to 123° longitude and on the north-south axis from 120° to 130° north

latitude. Forming a triangle shape, it is bounded on the north by the province of

Albay and Albay Gulf, on the south by Samar and San Bernardino strait; on the

east by the Pacific Ocean, and on the west by Burias Island and Ticao Pass. 10

The province is situated at the southernmost tip of Luzon, has a land are of

21,444 km2 and offers the visitor a wide variety of sights to see, places to

explore, folk celebrations to join and enjoy. The province of Sorsogon is an

ethnolinguistic Bicolano & Bisakol groups in which the people are religious, being

mostly Roman Catholics, and are the active in the festivities celebrated
throughout the year. The province has many tourist destinations like Bulusan

Lake, Donsol’s Whale Sharks, Subic Beach, and many more. Donsol’s Whale

sharks is known for the biggest fish in Donsol and Bulusan lake which was once

the poster image of the province and the dubbed the “Switzerland of the

Philippines” because it similitude to an Alpine lake. It is only right to strategize a

marketing scheme that can use these tourist locations to make money off of it.

Sorsogon will surely benefit when its tourist locations boost its economy with

proper marketing strategies.

The current marketing campaign of Sorsogon, as of 2017, is

“#SoSorsogon”, which describes Sorsogon in different ways using “so” and an

adjective (e.g.: so calming, so vibrant, so Sorsogon). 11 The foremost tourism

strategy being adopted by the City government is the “Community-Based Eco-

tourism Strategy” which focuses on the development of tourism sites without

causing any harm or damage to the environment.

The study will take place on the Province of Sorsogon because the

researchers are from there, and they are interested in how the province’s tourism

program works and how it can be improved upon. The tourism department of

Sorsogon Province is a key informant to their marketing and promotion

strategies. The would-be results from this research will benefit the tourism

department of Sorsogon Province. It will also benefit the Province of Sorsogon,

various tourist attractions in Sorsogon, and future researchers in the tourism

field. This study limits itself to the promotional strategies of Sorsogon Province;

promotional strategies from other countries, cities/provinces and businesses;

how Sorsogon’s strategies compare to other strategies; and how said strategies

can be improved. This study will not discuss past promotion strategies of the

province and the shortcomings of the tourism department in marketing the

province.

In the marketing and promotion strategies, there is always room for

improvement; with sufficient knowledge in marketing trends, this improvement

will be quicker and easier. With a place like Sorsogon to promote- an exotic and

beautiful province with many tourist attractions- promotion should be easy. All it

takes to profit off of these attractions is the right plan, and this study will help the

tourism department in making that plan with the data and conclusions to be

gathered and analyzed in the future.

Statement of the Problem

This study will determine the promotional strategies of the tourism

department of Sorsogon Province in the year 2017.

1) What is the tourism profile of Sorsogon Province along:

a. No. of identified tourist spots?

b. No. of tourists per year?

c. Income generated by tourism per year?

2) What are the promotional strategies implemented by Sorsogon Province?

3) What are the problems encountered by the following

organization/business entities in promoting the tourism of Sorsogon?

a. Tourism Office

b. Non-Government Organization
 c. Private Business Entities

d. Communities near tourist spots

4) What could be proposed to enhance the promotional strategies of the tourism

department of Sorsogon Province?

This research will treat the tourism department as a business organization

as they have marketing strategies similar to businesses. This research aims to

come up with an amendment to established marketing plans that can get more

tourists to come to Sorsogon. This research intends to formulate a plan that will

increase the level of effectiveness of marketing and promotion strategies. Since

tourism is a factor in getting more money to the province, proper planning can

make the difference.

Scope and Delimitation

This study will cover the promotional strategies of Sorsogon Province;

promotional strategies from other countries, cities/provinces and businesses;

how Sorsogon’s strategies compare to other strategies; and how said strategies

can be improved. All of these will be included to see how Sorsogon fairs in

comparison with other marketing cities and provinces and what can be learned

from other marketing strategies and then apply those strategies to Sorsogon.

This study would include statements from the tourism office, communities

near tourist spots, non-government organizations, and private business entities.

They are essential to the completion of this study as they can provide insight and

information on the current state of tourism of Sorsogon Province.

 This study will however not go in-depth to the history of Sorsogon

Province. This will not be discussed as it would stray from current promotions

strategies employed by the tourism department. This study will just tackle the

surface of statistics when it comes to the treatment of the data. This study will

just interpret data through graphs and analyze.

Significance

The result of this study is deemed significant to the following:

Tourism Department of Sorsogon Province. This study will be

significant in helping the tourism department of Sorsogon Province to market

properly to tourists. With the would-be results of this study, the tourism

department could plan an effective marketing campaign to boost tourism in

Sorsogon.

Community. The various tourist attractions in Sorsogon would also

benefit from the would-be results of this study. More tourists will come with an

effective tourism campaign, so more money will go to the tourist attractions and

the nearby businesses. With this, the economy of Sorsogon will be improved.

Local Government Units. LGU’s of the different municipalities of

Sorsogon would benefit from this study. With more people coming to Sorsogon,

more money would come to each municipality.

Private Business Entities. With an improved tourism plan, more tourists

will come to Sorsogon. Private businesses in Sorsogon would benefit with more

customers in the vicinity, and private businesses outside Sorsogon would be

tempted to put a branch in Sorsogon to take advantage of the tourism.

 Future researchers. Future researchers of Sorsogon’s tourism activities

will benefit from this research as they would have a related study to rely on. With

the would-be results of this study, they would have a more comprehensive and

definite result than this study. This will make their research work a lot easier.
 NOTES
1https://www.forbes.com/2009/06/29/las-vegas-australia-paul-hogan-

leadership-cmo-network-marketing_slide_7.html#1aa242bd307c
2http://www.brazil.org.za/tourism.html

3http://holidayplace.co.uk/news/details/118035/costa-rica-launches-new-global-

tourism-campaign
4https://whyvietnam.com/en/whyvietnam-vietnams-national-tourism-campaign-

officially-launched-1098
5https://aseanup.com/promoting-tourism-malaysia/

http://www.tourism.gov.my/campaigns/view/malaysia-truly-asia
6http://www.tarsierfoundation.org/news/the-philippine-environment-and-its-eco-

tourism-potential
7http://pangasinan.gov.ph/2016/12/pangasinan-tourism-website-launched/

https://pangasinan.explora.ph/
8
http://pageone.ph/dot-bicol-among-phs-top-five-tourist-destinations/
9http://www.tourism.gov.ph/sitepages/InteractiveSitesPage.aspx?siteID=3

1
10https//:www.islandsproperties.com

11http://sorsogoncity.gov.ph/?page_id=3543