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Philippine Travel Exchange (Phitex) 2009, an annual marketing event, which was designed to globally strengthen the country’s tourism brand and encourage local participants to promote affordable and competitive tourism packages, will be held again next month.

Department of Tourism (DoT) secretary Ace Durano said “Slated at the SMX Convention Center on September 2 to 4, Phitex ’09 kicks off with educational seminars for local sellers of travel and tourism packages. While the seminars are ongoing, event partner Philtoa (Philippine Tour Operators Association) will conduct pre-event tours and related activities for the foreign buyers.”

The DoT specifically targets leading travel agents from Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, USA, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Russia, India and many other countries in the regions of Scandinavia, Easter Europe, Middle East, and Southeast Asia, to join Phitex 2009. The tourism agency expects to bring in some 200 wholesale buyers from all over the world.

But the most important component of Phitex, said Durano, is the Travel Exchange (Travex), scheduled on September 3, where foreign buyers meet the local sellers in pre-scheduled appointments. A total of 28 pre-scheduled appointments will be given each delegate for the table top discussions during the Travex.

The tourism secretary added, “But considering the significant number of delegates, additional appointments may be set ‘unofficially’ during the breaks and various social functions throughout the event.”

“It is these business meetings between the foreign and local industry players that generate significant tourist volume from our target countries, where the Philippine tourism brand gets promoted directly over the counter of the POS (point of sale) to consumers globally. In effect, the foreign buyers conduct the onsite consumer marketing for us in their respective countries,” Durano explained.