Leveling up creative tourism with tech and e-commerce by Janette Toral at the Creative Tourism Conference -Metropolitan Theater, Manila -Hosted by Tourism Promotions Board

I'm really excited about the team and of course the tourism sector is one of the I could say one of my favorite sectors and close to the heart and I hope that my presentation today on how we can level up creative tourism with e-commerce and the use of tech tools will enlighten all of us and I hope it will help you in terms of your strategies as well so

I think one of the premise that we have to accept today especially with all of the developments in digital technology is that culture is now our content and I think we've seen this also in other countries like in the case of South Korea their culture

Their art is their content. And when you go online, there was a documentary recently by Al Jazeera where they said our culture, our emotions, everything that happens to us is suddenly becoming a content also for people because that's how people connect to us.

so tourism is now shockable when you go online you see a video or you watch a video on kiktok somebody's talking about the destination and then they will talk about the different rooms and how much it costs encourage you to book encourage you to take action and if it is done well you see a lot of people commenting asking a lot of details how much among others

There was a time I conducted a digital marketing for the tourism industry learning session in Boracay. I remember having one student there who was maintaining a lot of Facebook pages of the various small lodges in Boracay, but particularly in Station 2 and Station 3.

and these lodges, their room rates are around 750 per night. And then, you will see this person, while attending the session, really focus on the Facebook page because she keeps receiving a lot of inquiries, a lot of questions about the properties.

To the point when I asked her, what time do you sleep? I can only sleep so little because you have to respond to the inquiries. You cannot help it. You really have to get up and answer. And then she gets paid per booking. If I'm not mistaken, she gets paid 50 pesos per booking per night. To the point I was encouraging virtual assistants later on.

especially for those in places where there are a lot of beach cottages to follow the example of that person who was very active talking to a lot of the lounge owners who cannot maintain their Facebook pages or cannot answer to all the inquiries that you see to also offer a similar service and help these establishments get more booking but definitely for a lot of people today before they even

reach a destination. A lot of the tourism experience already happens online. How many of you have kids at home? Mga bata pa. I hope you have a lot. So, one of the things that we do pag medyo nangungulit yung bata, manunod kami sa YouTube. So, isa sa mga napagkakawaan namin pang ori sa YouTube lately, yung mga whale shows. Yung mga nag-acrobatic

performance ng mga whale. Of course, you see a version in the US and in other countries, pero there was one country, yung talagang ganda-ganda ng performance, yun sa Konogawa, Japan nata. Kasi you have three to four whales performing simultaneously and carrying their trainers. You don't even see that kind of version in the US. And of course, whenever the kid watches it, talagang tuwang-tuwa siya, no, the point.

I wanna go there, I wanna go there. So parang feeling ko mukhang nag-agree na kami pumunta roon. Parang nagpanood na namin yung boom show while watching the videos on repeat on YouTube. But it does not deter you from aspiring to really go there and see it for yourself. So the digital journey truly begins even before the trip starts. But the Philippines is...

Although we have a lot of potential, our tourism is growing, rebounding, even after the pandemic. We have six, if I'm not mistaken, we have around six million visitors last year.

almost 13 billion dollars in revenue. Vietnam had around 13 million visitors last year with 27 billion dollar revenue. Thailand had 35 million visitors last year with 46 billion dollar revenue. And I think the question there is how do we serve and how do we sell? I mean when we go out there and market

our services do we focus more on 89 I guess it can't be helped we focus 80 to 90 percent local and maybe only think of 10 percent coming from other countries because I guess that is the nature of our visitors in our country but if we want to scale further maybe we also need to adapt to a different approach and AI is not necessarily helping

you know in my digital marketing talks lately particularly in the past two weeks I was talking to two real estate companies discussing digital marketing approaches and I was telling them that the buyers for the next 10 years

will be your Gen Alphas turning 22, 25. They are your travelers. In fact, your Gen Z right now relies heavily on AI. And this year, Gen Beta, and if the Gen Y has the Wikipedia, the Gen Z has the AI.

And if you notice, when you search for any information online, Google already gives you the answer. Sometimes we don't even click on the websites anymore to find out the answer. And more often than not, when we have a question about a destination, we don't go to sites and look for information. We ask for data. So I asked a question here on the top right.

If I have $3,000 for a 5-day trip budget, what is the best choice for me? Should I go to Vietnam, Thailand, or the Philippines? And this is the answer given to me. The first one said, for long vacation, it gave me a country, Vietnam. For blend of accessibility, vibrant culture, and great value, Thailand was suggested to me by Google Gemini.

And for breathtaking natural landscapes and island adventures, Philippines. Slightly higher cost for a more focused trip. So definitely there's the impression that Philippines is always expensive. And then, of course, like any other traveler visiting another country, you also ask questions about safety. Which is the

and then it said that Vietnam is the safest to travel only common concerns are traffic accidents Thailand very high because of tourist dams and of course the

they had a horror story before about people being encouraged to work for one of the companies there and all of a sudden they get shipped to Myanmar and work in some of the scam hubs and the Philippines it says medium, street crime and regional security risk it depends on where you are going and my challenge to digital marketers is that

We should build content because at the end of the day, artificial intelligence gathers content from websites, also articles written about these countries, written about these destinations, stories of people that get documented online, including, of course, those that gets published on video. In fact, if you're using Facebook Messenger,

and if you ask Meta the answers that Meta will give you and the references that Meta will give you will also point to websites not Facebook pages and that's why I'm reminding marketers do not neglect your websites because even the artificial intelligence does not pick up information

on social media. It picks up information from websites. And there's also some studies published recently where they take inventory of the content that gets published on social media, particularly on platforms like X.

there's a higher number of content that is not necessarily true click dates, but all of them sounding real but actually they're not true but somehow they are believable enough to the point that you might believe it is true so it's more than promotion there's the digital product experience creative commerce and access

so it's not enough that we just talk about the venue it's not enough that we talk about the place we go beyond that we can talk about souvenirs, handcrafted goods that will add value to the travel adventure that we have although of course whenever you visit a location usually there's a souvenir shop out there where you can buy things

but more often than not when you get there you're not prepared or sometimes even when you're there the packaging or the materials are not necessarily ready to be purchased like the store is not accepting credit card or the packaging is not sufficient enough for you to take it with you to your next destination and even before a person visits or after they visit and if they like the product

then they should be able to buy it online. Recently, I was attending a session on the digital economy framework agreement. There's a policy discussion there. And an old issue, an old e-commerce issue rises again. You know, our challenges with the marketplaces today. If you shop on Lazada and Shopee, how many of you have experienced that

I have to wait for like 7 to 14 days because it will come from another country. Have you experienced that? Yeah? So that means sellers from other countries can easily sell here. But if I am a Filipino merchant, I sell on the platform. And I ask, can my product be also available to other countries where you have your presence? They don't allow you.

they have a lot of reasons, a lot of excuses. So one of the policies that we're pushing for is the issue on reciprocity. We should not allow merchants that don't have offices here to sell here to local marketplaces if our merchants cannot be given the same courtesy or the same access or the same platform.

otherwise we're putting ourselves on a great disadvantage and this has to really change if we want e-commerce to be also competitive

and of course, government agencies who are helping cooperatives, women's groups, local crafters to put their products online. More often than not, they cannot sell overseas because the platforms does not support the idea that their products can be shipped abroad or does not provide the amenities for such a facility to be provided. I think we should push harder. We should impose more.

we should talk to DDI more since you have the e-commerce law you have the internet transactions app we should issue better marketplace policies that are equitable and fair to Filipino entrepreneurs and especially for those who are in these sectors marketing artisan products and if you notice also a lot of the booking platforms today have built in

Commerce tools. I remember, and I'm sure for a lot of you, if you want to travel to a location, what usually happens? We buy a ticket first, then we book a hotel later, or if we talk to a travel agency, maybe when you get there, you will arrange for a tour. Usually, these three things are booked separately. Although in some cases, when you visit a hotel,

sometimes the hotel will have a bundled tour already but a lot of the platforms are doing it differently like I recently traveled to Davao and I was surprised that my travel mate we traveled twice this year we went to Thailand for an event and then we went to Davao for another event and then for both trips

he booked at a travel website. Meaning he got the ticket, he got the hotel, and he got the tour package all in one website. What me, I was doing the traditional way. Get a ticket, go to Agoda, and then, you know, the whole shit down, no? But this guy, he just went to that platform and then got it there already and he told me that, I got a good deal, Janet, no? And talking to me about it.

so I think more and more and I think as the consumer becomes more savvy as the consumer becomes more cost conscious booking platforms will gain further popularity unfortunately

Booking platforms that are made in the Philippines have not really taken off yet. I mean, there were some efforts here and there to construct something, but it has not really taken off. More often than not, it is the international booking platforms who are able to arrange the better deals. Although I remember, because in my write-offs, sometimes I talk about one platform to another, and then there was one platform that I featured, and immediately,

One of my students in Sorsogon who has a beach lodge there said, I did not sign up for that website. Why? Because I don't like tourists coming from that country. That's their number one source of tourists. I don't like them. They're so noisy. They're so messy. Et cetera, et cetera. So I guess some establishments also have preference on the kind of tourists they want to accommodate. But definitely,

As entrepreneurs and as creators or as service professionals, we also have to train ourselves to become modern day content creators or be referred to as cultural entrepreneurs. Our tour guides can also double as digital creators.

and monetize the content of their tours if they can be further taught on how to livestream, how to create content, how to monetize it, how to do it right, you know, apart from just having visitors to tour as part of your source of earnings. When you don't have a visitor, you can go around and create content and generate

a new source of revenue for you and utilize various social media platforms in disseminating your content. Weavers and craftsmen, instead of just creating the products, submit it to their cooperatives and wait for a sale to come, can also go online and start selling themselves.

maybe we can help them and encourage them to become registered because the platforms are also very strict now in terms of who can sell you have to be a registered business for the cooperatives having a more predictable income strategy I think my challenge for a lot of the local artisan weavers and craftsmen the products are nice but the photos are not you know usually what happens

they make something and then they put it on the hanger and then they will put a picture that's the picture in the couple room they cannot even find a model to wear it for them or sometimes one picture four styles of blouses all in one picture and then that is what they will post

Obviously, they are busy shopping and they have a lot of time. I appreciate how to go about it. It's a continuous challenge because it requires a lot of effort to be honest. But I think if they will be able to do it properly, they can also utilize AI tools in terms of creating videos, in terms of creating AI photos, using their products.

like having a foreign AI model wearing your product you can actually do that now but of course you have to take a good photo of your product and use it on the platform and let the model do its job of promoting it for you I don't know if you caught the news recently was that Vogue or Cosmo who got into some crazy intrigue because

they use AI models for a lot of the clothes that was featured on the magazine and I think even the cover yeah not the cover but in a lot of the photos, actual photos inside the magazine was not using an actual model anymore they are using an AI model and of course it's disrupting the industry because when you do photoshoot you have the lights

the camera, the makeup, you know a lot of parties come to the plate to do a photoshoot all of a sudden you remove all of that and replace it with graphic designers or AI enabled designers to do the job but we have to prepare for that, it's really happening

and then you also have communities monetizing their stories via social media that is also possible and it's just planning your narrative on how to go about it and with that in mind we really have to reimagine the traveler's journey and think about where trust needs to be built where personalization needs to be built so that

when a person makes a decision on where to travel even though we're a little bit pricey in comparison to Vietnam or Thailand they will come to us because it's the same scenario I mean definitely Japan is more is pricier and South Korea is pricier than us but people don't care if they really like to visit the country they will go there anyway so price is not an exact argument alone you know um

I have a friend here in the audience. Joc, are you there? Joc, can you stand up? And maybe you can, so that they can see you. By the way, Joc is one of my friends in the digital marketing sector. I think you will be here the whole day. So if you have questions on digital marketing, definitely, that is one reliable person to ask. Before, I used to organize events

on convention centers like SMX. And I think I did it for three years. And then one day, he was working for a hotel in Makati, a boutique hotel. He said, come visit me. We met each other as bloggers. Come visit me. I'll treat you to coffee. I want you to check out my place. Maybe you can move.

one of your seminars here. Since I am very active, of course, I'm always on the lookout. I was there, we were looking around, and they said, why don't we try an event? I'll help you look for a sponsor. So we did two events, and we got sponsored, so we were able to

So eventually, I did my e-commerce summit and digital influencer marketing summit in the hotel. And then I did my certified e-commerce specialist class. He said, you know, we have a car open here. It's only used in the evening. It's not used in the daytime. Why don't you hold your class here since your class is small? But it's an open air. It's not the usual for those. I said, yes, also. So we really had a good deal.

Unfortunately, when he left, the person who took over his position did not have the same PR. The deals disappeared. Parama, no interest to carry on with whatever arrangements he had planned with others. And then, remember I told you I was organizing my event in this big convention center and paying almost 200,000 a day to hold my event there?

On the year that I did not hold an event there, somebody called me and said, Hi, I didn't notice you did not book an event here. Can we have a meeting with you? I said, sure. They offered me a 50% discount if I book two events for the second event. They will give me a VIP card. And I was telling them, you know, I organized events with your venue for three years. But even once you called me, I never received even an umbrella.

not even once. And then on the year that I did not book any event, that's the only time you thought of reaching out to me. That's why I think in the tourism business, especially in this business, relationship is everything. You might be able to get a client because you offer a good price, but if you cannot sustain it with good relationship,

You can lose that customer to another enemy. I remember when I had an event with Joe. There was one time my sister booked a different event. I feel so guilty because it was near Joe's place and I had to profusely apologize to him that we did not do it this way. I was so guilty about it. You know, I think that's the...

price of having good relationship you know you don't want to disappoint each other but anyway i think with that in mind we have to reimagine the travelers and how is it affected today now there are ai tools and a lot of the platforms are releasing an ai tool now a lot of the booking platforms have an ai chat tool and then it will ask you what are you planning

to do for your next trip and then you will explain your next trip and then after saying that I'm gonna stay for three days for these are the specific date I'll be flying from this location I also want to do the following activities in less than a minute maybe 10 to 20 seconds it already has an idea already for me it already has the price from the ticket

to us in one location especially if I inform the AI of my budget it will already give me two suggestions so I don't have to search anymore before the sale you have to select the date tick tick tick on the parameters and then you wait for the results and now you just chart your agenda the more specific you are the more specific recommendations it will give you so definitely pre-trip

idea rallies will no longer be done on the platform AI chatbots will be the next channel for it maybe you're not using it but your customers are going to use it and it will add a question if I go to this place instead how much will it cost can you compare the two okay I'm planning to bring 20 delegates going to do this activity if I do it to this country and if I do it to this country

what will be the difference in cost? AI is helping them make a decision. So that is why we really have to invest in our content. We really have to invest. We really have to beef up the information that we have. Otherwise, that lack of information is gonna put us at a great disadvantage because the engines will not show that information.

during trip establishments really need to be able to accept electronic payments and post-trip we can expect people also to post a review so for service providers in this space we have to keep engagement going so that the income will also continue flowing and another trend that we're noticing lately is the growth of edgy travel trends

I mean the pictures that we see online showing you the landscape, showing you the mountains, showing you the beaches somebody will tell you that is so Gen X that is so Gen X maybe Gen Y wants to see something more Gen Z want to see something more Gen Alpha wants to see something more and that is why there's a viral video recently

of an American visiting, if I'm not mistaken, Afghanistan. And then the intro video is that there are a lot of guys, the Taliban, standing behind him. And then there's this American guy with a black plastic bag on top of his head. What we need America to know. And then they removed the plastic from the guy's head. The American said, welcome to Afghanistan. That's what he did.

and all of a sudden they showed this entire clip about him carrying a gun, you know, the Armalite while swimming, riding at the back of a pickup truck, you know, putting that turban on their heads and trying out the food as if they are really enjoying themselves. So people are looking for edgy travel adventures. I remember when I visited a country where

I think we agree that there are some countries who allow you to smoke marijuana, right? Like it's legal to them. Like you can go to a cafe bar, a weed bar, and you go there if you want to smoke. And I said, you don't want to do that. When you come here and somebody takes a drug test, that will show positive. You don't want to do that here. You don't want to do that even if you can do it abroad. It's going to have a lot of repercussions.

when you do it here I mean when you take the test here but anyway they call psychedelic experiences psychedelic tours so some people are attracted to that the road warrior tours like traveling the country around the bike maybe there are people who also want to venture in the west 15c and join a patrol a patrol tour maybe because they want something different because they see it on the news

they want to see it for themselves in action. If there's a Gangnam tour, maybe somebody wants a Batang Kiapo tour. Go to the house of Tanggol, the house of Ramon, have reenact some of the scenes there and create some sort of novelty. Now, what's popular now on Netflix, it's okay not to be okay. The unfertile version.

You know, Aunt Curtis' clothes are really nice, right? If they have identified us once, then you can go there and wear her clothes by now and have a nice photo. And say, you can feel like Aunt Curtis for five minutes, you know, and wear her nice clothes. And some, you have the, how do you call that?

some adventure seekers they go through the heart of typhoons, heart of explosions because they really want a different experience so

in other countries like in Vietnam they talk about the war experience right so they have tours that talks about the war when you go to Mangindana there's a there's a tour there if you want to go to ground zero and see ground zero for yourself and of course if you got the chance to

I forgot the name of the place but anyway when you try the food there it's really amazing you'll be amazed and then and then in Thailand you have the spiritual

the tapu rituals that are done differently but at the same time you have the nightlife adventure the wild nightlife adventure in Banco right previewing previewing that's where you will get asked when you roam around there but those are edgy travel stories of course I'm sure we have our own but maybe we have to rethink because

the younger generation, because they're stuck at home, always on their computers, always on their tablet, when they go out there, maybe they want to

something different something more fun and we say it's more fun in the Philippines because we love the Philippines then maybe we can we can we can also do something edgier fun that we will all love maybe that's something that we can think about to cater to some travelers who just want to do more than the usual swim watch the blue and do more um

For a lot of players in this industry, partnership plays an important role. I would like to cite an example. I'm not endorsing BNI, but I'm just sharing it here from personal experience. Last June,

I got impacted as a member of a BNI chapter called Galyon. I joined that because a fellow board member in our company became a regional head. So we joined to support her. But anyway, one of the things that I learned there that I think is also one of the reasons why the chapters get lonely is they have this concept of a power team. So we have one member there who is in the travel industry.

Her name is Rose, and the name of her travel agency is Radiance Travel and Adventures. So anyway, she's very bubbly, lively personality. And I remember within a span of one month, she was already promoting the Avatar Tour in China. So she was campaigning to different chapters. Five months to pay! So they're all leaving.

This October, I did not join. I don't know my schedule, but we're going for the Avatar tour for, I think, almost a week. And then prior to that, two weeks ago, we went to Lakabay Museo because she organized it. But because we're part of the community, we're there to support each other. So anyway, we joined that also.

and then we also have an events team there and then because I launched a book recently on lights and they kept asking me, Janet, why don't we do a proper book launch? We have a member whose family owns a mall in the south and then we have a member who's an event organizer. We have a member who's into lights and sound. We have a member who's into event styling. We have a member who's handling a group of performers.

We have an international event that's coming in November in Australia. So our travel girl said, I will handle all of your visa applications from Australia. And then of course there's one who's into travel insurance. The president of our chapter is the sales and marketing head of Manila Hotel. So all of our meetings are there.

because when you join a chapter, it's like they have a concept called luck in. Your competitors will not be allowed to join for as long as you keep your membership active. But anyway, I think the point here is at this day and age that we are all using AI, that we are all watching content online, but nothing beats a personal recommendation. Nothing beats knowing a person who sells.

nothing beats a camaraderie of a community where you have to support one another so look around you, I mean look at your communities, look at your local chambers your local watery, your local chasis or whatever, or your local travel association if there's a travel association here, maybe they have a meeting you join it's really important to keep building those relationships because

In bad times, as we all know, we only want to do business with the people that we like. And in good times, we also want to do business with the people that we like.

People ask me what kind of activities have I done before in the tourism sector that are quite memorable for me. Quite memorable for me are the Blower Experience Tour. There was a time I was on a food trip. Davao food trip, Papanga food trip. And a lot of people join food trips because a lot of people want to eat.

Now, when you want to go eat, when you go to one of the hotels, I'm so surprised, almost 2,000, 3,000 are doing it. But if you join a food tour, maybe 3,000 will get you through the day or two and experience different food adventures. Maybe we need something like that. Summit events, doing it in different places so that we can also promote the locations. We need...

Tourist guides to be more familiar and using digital technology so they can become content creators. Mabuhay Accommodation, they were trained to do online marketing during the pandemic. I think they need more now for Mabuhay Accommodations. Our digital marketing e-commerce bootcamp for the tourism industry is available online. Actually, if you look for it, you will be able to see it and you can still access it if you want to learn it.

so please remember tourism doesn't end at the destination it evolves with every click with every post and with every purchase so I guess we really have to think about the entire experience and make sure that if somebody asks for specific information using AI I hope your name will appear as an answer your establishment your brand will appear as an answer but that will only happen if you will work on your online presence

and Creative Tourism will also thrive when we stop seeing ourselves only as hosts but see ourselves as cultural entrepreneurs, co-creators of global cultural commerce. You know, while I was reading the theme of the program yesterday and earlier today, it inspired me because one of the things that I did recently is also publish storybooks

for my grandson because he has two book reports every quarter. And I said, for the two books that I will release, storybooks this quarter, maybe I have to consider also including two recent elements to support this advocacy. And we need more stories that will come out, new stories. And with AI, there's a lot that you can do. You can create new music.

and maybe we can create more awareness about our country, about our places with the help of artificial intelligence coming from more local content creators. Thank you so much. Thank you very much Ms. Marinduque for inspiring us with a very informative discourse on technology development.