Boracay Beach

The Philippine Department of Tourism has launched a campaign to woo Filipinos in North America to revisit their homeland. The promotion, dubbed “The Philippines: Explore, Experience, Return,” is geared towards second and third-generation Filipino Americans and Filipino Canadians.

The idea is for FilAms and FilCans to “come home, rediscover their roots, and experience the Philippines,” said government tourism secretary Ace Durano.

There are about 3.3 million Filipino Americans in the United States, the tourism department estimates. According to the Philippine tourism attaché in Toronto, John Tanjangco, the official estimate of the number of Filipinos in Canada is 600,000. Unofficially it’s around 750,000, he said.

About 528,000 FilAms came to visit the Philippines last year. In the first quarter of 2006, the DoT logged 149,511 arrivals from the US.

Tanjangco said about 75,000 Filipino Canadians traveled to the Philippines last year and he expects the number to rise to 80,000 this year.

However, he acknowledged the planned closure of the DoT’s Toronto office later this year may result in a drop of travel by FilCans to the Philippines. Canada will fall under the supervision of DoT office in Chicago, he said.

Explaining the new campaign, Durano said the more affluent sectors of Filipino Americans are the second and third generations. “The problem is, they are not that close to their roots, which is why we started this campaign. There is a big market that we have not yet fully tapped.”

In the first phase of the project, the DoT is raffling 250 air tickets to the Philippines through Philippine Airlines. The campaign was launched at the Fiesta Filipina Expo in San Francisco earlier this month.

American and Canadian nationals of Filipino descent can join the raffle and future promotions through the Experience the Philippines website.