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Destinations known | The big mistake of Philippines tourism promotion video? Assuming consumers of social media think deeply about anything
- No sun, sand or special effects, but instead a squad of dancers who portray Philippine landscapes and visitor activities such as surfing
- Elsewhere, a TikTok video of a hotel restaurant operating in a cave in Bali millions of year old belatedly stirs officials to investigate
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As a work of performance art, it’s pretty good. But as a tool to boost tourism, we’re not so sure …
“The People Make the Destination” is the title of the latest promotional video produced by the Philippines’ Department of Tourism (DOT).
The first 25 seconds of the two-minute video are devoted to a list of things the producers have “skipped” in order to keep viewers from skipping the whole thing: “the ordinary”, sun, sand, actors, drone shots, pop songs, special effects. Then we get to “what truly matters”.
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The choreography involves 40 or so dancers in a studio recreating “iconic landscapes and symbols in the country, such as the Philippine eagle, the Banaue Rice Terraces in Benguet, and the Chocolate Hills in Bohol”, according to an article on the adobo magazine website (for which we are grateful, because we probably would have missed those features on first view).
There’s a church and a volcano in there, too. The last 25 seconds are devoted to a surfer riding his board across “waves” of blue-clad dancers.
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