Following the gathering of insights and experiences during the Cebu Branding Session attended by 200 participants last Friday, the Cebu Branding Team targets to come up with a brand in time for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit here.
“The Cebu Branding Team will meet again to come up with a shortlist of the best, which will then be floated in the community through consultation,” said Milagros Espina, tourism chair of Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), in a statement. “Our target is to come up with a brand in time for the Apec meet in Cebu.”

The 2015 Cebu Branding program is a partnership with the CCCI Tourism Committee, Mega Cebu and Team Philippines.
During the interaction, some taglines and slogans that came up were Celebrate Cebu, Fun Cebu, Cebu Capital of Smiles, Cebu is It, Inspiring Cebu, Vibrant Cebu, You are Cebu, Fun and Friendship Cebu, Island of Smiles, Sunny Cebu and many others.
“We will resume reviewing the June 19 inputs and make a shortlist,” said Espina, adding that the session was a success, as all concerned sectors including the academe “understood the need to craft the Cebu brand to be able to distinguish it from the rest of world.”

Cebu City Tourism Council (CCTC) chairperson Tetta Baad, meanwhile, admitted creating a brand for Cebu is no easy task.
“We should come up with a brand that is really uniquely ours, something we can really call our own,” said Baad in a separate interview at the sidelines of the Tourism Night on Saturday.

“What we will do now with the inputs we gathered is cull it and remove those that are already used by other countries and those that aren’t aligned with what we want Cebu to represent based on the market research we conducted,” said Baad, who is also a marketing consultant.

“It is a long process but we will work with what resources we have,” she added.
Baad said they will likely pursue the concept of Cebu being “a friendly and beautiful destination” based on the findings of Conde Nast Travel survey in 2013.

Cebu, together with the other Visayas Islands, was named the third among the top five best sslands in Asia in 2013, in the Reader’s Choice Awards conducted by the international Conde Nast Travel Magazine.
Based on the ratings, travelers from all over the world find Cebu a friendly and beautiful place. The scenic spots and beautiful beaches of Cebu, as well as the warmth of the Cebuanos seem to keep attracting tourists from all over the world. One survey participant said, “It is probably the best island city in the universe.” Another said, “These islands have it all, including shopping and restaurant needs for any traveler with the friendliest people you will meet anywhere in the world!”

In the 2012 survey, Cebu placed seventh among the top 10 islands in Asia, scoring 75.9.
Baad, however, is looking at launching the brand in January 2016, prior to the Sinulog. She said that towards the end of the year, they will already have the brand with its executional elements.

Henry Schumacher, vice-president for external affairs of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, noted that Cebu is in a “brilliant position” as far as tourism is concerned. He pointed out, however, that the country as represented by government and private sectors, must come to a collective decision in terms of marketing the country.
“We need to know what kind of tourists we want,” he said, in a separate forum held here recently. 

Source: Sun Star