How Depiction Shapes The Philippine Narrative

By Gil delos Santos

Photo:

"Tuyo" (dried fish) as one of the highlights in a five star hotel breakfast

COMMON NARRATIVE

Tuyo is a poor family's cheapest sustenance.

VALUE FOCUS NARRATIVE

Tuyo is a Filipino comfort food enjoyed by families brought by abundance of the Philippine sea.

As Philippine tourism ambassadors, each one of us contributes how we shape our country's perception.

When we go around, even luxury travellers could encounter mishaps along the way. It's the universe' nature of balance.

As storytellers, we must choose to take pride in sharing the value over inconvenience.

This is a responsibility not realized when summoned by the feeling of entitlement and arrogance.

It's just convenient to be arrogant than be goodwill ambassadors.

It's what divides high value travellers over tryhard status seekers.

In order to target intentional travellers, the Philippines must have a conscious effort how we tell stories, how we depict our country, how we describe our people, how we project our patriotism.

The next time we flex our Instagram entries, we must be mindful of our intent — either we solely seek validation without conscious effort to give back to promote our country...or we become patriotic storytellers taking pride how lucky we are to be Filipino.

IN MARKETING

(1) When we talk about influencers in promoting our country, it's comparable to a movie that involves a scriptwriter, a cinematographer, a director, and an actor.

When prospects are enticed and become curious to take the bait, "expectation versus reality" suddenly becomes a popular hashtag next.

(2) With personal storytelling that accounts real experiences, it's a no cost promotion.

Between the two, when intentional travellers search where to go, number 2 always works for them. They always choose value over instagram entries.

These are the high value target. They are the spenders.

Marketing should invest more on authentic local storytelling over a non-stop choreographed visualizations.

That's what it takes to #LoveThePhilippines 🇵🇭

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