Melo Villareal
Philippine Department of Tourism successfully launches Visit Philippines Again 2016 in London station using virtual reality
Passersby and commuters who frequent the London Waterloo Station were greeted with an awesome surprise last April 24 to May 23, 2016, when the Philippines’ Department of Tourism “took over” the station and strewed the hallways with catchy, fancy tourism “immersion zones”. These tourism booths, which use the appeal of 3D technology, were part of the DOT’s Visit Philippines Again 2016 campaign.
“The tourist arrivals to the Philippines for 2016 has already reached record numbers this year, growing by over 20% in February alone,” Tourism Attache and Director for Northern and Southern Europe, Gerard O. Panga said, according to an article published in itsmorefuninthephilippines.co.uk. “With such a vast variety of cultural and musical events, adventure and beach holidays and the Philippines being home to the most beautiful island in the world—Palawan—we are sure that there are many reasons to keep coming back to the Philippines.”
Other tourism booths that colored the hallways of London Waterloo Station included floor stickers that allow commuters to take “foot selfies”, a 3D selfie stand, and even virtual reality pods that allow people to experience and view the Philippines through 360, panoramic images taken by renowned Philippine photographer, Rommel C. Bundalian.
Participants of the booths were given the chance to win instant prizes. Mike Tutton, a lucky passerby, won a six nights, seven days, package good for two people, for a holiday to Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort in Mactan, Cebu, Bluewater Panglao Beach Resort in Panglao, Bohol, and Dusit Thani Manila in Makati, plus a roundtrip ticket from London to Manila via Philippine Airlines. Tutton himself was equally stunned to win the said prize, according to his statement from the same website.
“I was just walking at the station with a mate who needed to get his money changed, so I went to have my photo taken while he did that,” Tutton recalled his experience in DOT’s booths before the moment he won. “I have never won anything in my life this big, so thank you.”
Aside from the aforementioned booths that gave commuters the chance to win instant prizes, DOT’s month-long campaign also included promotional videos in the station’s large motion digital screen.
Interviewed passersby and commuters all had happy faces and showed interest in going to Philippines. The current cold climate in London has boosted Philippines’ tropic, summery appeal.
“The whole thing is branded as Philippines so that in itself gives them (commuters) an island feeling. Now it’s very cold, so they want to have this feel of island, so it’s been very good so far.” Panga said in the promotional video featuring the campaign, posted by PDOT London in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGlZ-pOQb8o/.
“I don’t really know much about the Philippines… the Philippines might be an option now”, “I will definitely go home and look into some flights to the Philippines” were some of the comments of interested London residents in the YouTube video.
According to the same website, the “Station Domination was seen by some 8.4 million commuters … [and by] 1.2 million Facebook users with over 50,000 engagements on various social media platforms.”
