The Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) is placing greater focus on participating in travel tradeshows, mounting business missions, and conducting joint promotions across the Philippines’ key international markets, given their proven record of driving actual sales.
A TPB survey launched in 2024 – which tracks how many sales leads generated from these international shows convert into actual sales – found that initial leads are generally “conservative”.
TPB’s chief operating officer Maria Margarita Montemayor Nograles noted that actual bookings turn out to be much larger and “don’t come in right away, but trickle over the years”.
Philippine sellers participating alongside the TPB in international promotions are also required to report their actual sales and specify how much of that revenue can be attributed to the TPB, which serves as the marketing arm of the Department of Tourism. In 2024, actual bookings were more than 3.7 billion pesos (US$59 million).
“We’re seeing better numbers now,” Nograles told the Daily, adding that actual bookings rose to 4.3 billion pesos last year across all tradeshows attended by the TPB, excluding standalone sales missions abroad.
Participation has also grown: from 151 survey respondents in 2024, there are now about 245, indicating that more Philippine sellers are joining the TPB’s international promotional efforts.
Nograles added that the TPB also oversees business missions. For example, the mission to Japan several months ago yielded a “promising” pipeline of potential sales leads totalling one billion pesos. Meanwhile, recent business missions to China generated strong sales leads of 500 million pesos, alongside approximately 30 million pesos already secured in actual bookings.
When asked about calls from various sectors to provide cash subventions for the business events industry during unforeseen crises – such as pandemics or energy shocks – Nograles stated that direct financial subsidies are no longer feasible.
This decision comes at a time when TPB’s budget for next year was reduced to 1.1 billion pesos from its proposed 1.3 billion pesos.
She noted that while direct financial subsidies may have been offered in previous years, they are no longer practical under current conditions.
However, she reassured stakeholders of continued backing, and said: “We can support in other ways. There’s a list of support we can give under the MICE Plus incentive programme.”
