At the 16th Travel/Tours Expo that opened at the Mall of Asia on Friday, the Tourism Department announced the signing of an agreement with the Philippine Councilors? League aimed at training local officials on how to market their localities to domestic and foreign tourists. And, in line with this aim, ?Undersecretary Eduardo Jarque said the department will bring 100 councilors to each of the country?s 10 biggest tourism destinations like Cebu, Palawan, Bohol and others? (Source: ?DOT to launch new tourist come-ons? in Business Mirror, Feb. 8, 2009).

Training local officials on tourism marketing is a good idea but taking a hundred of them on a free trip around the country is an unnecessary expense. No two areas in this country are alike. What works for Bohol or Palawan with their beautiful beaches will not necessarily work for Tanay and Angono. Unless a councilor got elected by circumventing the residency requirement, he is presumed to known his locality like the back of his hand. He is in the best position to know what is attractive about his area, what the weak points are and where improvement is possible. A councilor from the Cordillera does not need to bask in White Beach to know how best to market his area.

The truth is that each local government already possesses an effective tool for marketing its locality. Each has an official Web site, a dot-gov-dot-ph domain, where all interesting information about where to go, what to see, where to stay, where to dine and where to shop can be published. The problem is that the Tourism Department is still laboring over obsolete marketing notions. They still don?t realize what an effective, highly viral and cheap marketing tool the Internet is. You think the WOW Philippines Web site is great? You ought to check the Malaysian Tourism Web site (tourism.gov.my) with its ?Real Stories from Real People? section. And the Malaysian Tourism site is published in English and Malaysian, ensuring that both local and foreign tourists will understand the content. And that?s something that the creators of WOW Philippines probably never thought about.

The even bigger problem is that local government officials know even less. Most think that a dot-gov-dot-ph domain is a personal tool for showcasing the mayor and his pet projects. Why, they?re virtually pre-campaign sites for the next election. And most have this crazy notion that only residents visit local government Web sites so they don?t feel any need to make it truly informative. Just look at the Web site of Antipolo?a list of business establishments with no useful information about them, a tourism page where photos don?t load and the Web pages aren?t even cross browser compliant. The target market is very local. Apparently thinking global hasn?t hit them yet.

The truth is, independent local Web publishers are doing a better job of marketing their areas. Compare, for instance, the official Web site of Dumaguete City (dumaguetecity.gov.ph) and the recently launched Go Dumaguete! (godumaguete.com). The front page of Go Dumaguete! contains more useful information and links than half a dozen pages of the official Web site which takes forever to load.

And what did it cost the government to have Go Dumaguete! online? Why, nothing! Not a single centavo. One of the authors is a friend. The idea for Go Dumaguete was born while she was visiting her cousins there a couple of years ago. A box about the authors on the index page says, ?Tincho and Lizza live in Dumaguete with their four kids and run a popular restaurant on the Boulevard. Totally friendly and active in socio-civic endeavors, they are your best resource for tourism and business opportunities in the City of Gentle People. They met through Tincho?s cousin, Lisa, who loves combining her passions?travel and Web site creation. She also runs a restaurant in Manila and a bed & breakfast in Baguio City. Together the cousins embark on the Go Dumaguete project to showcase the best of this gentle yet exciting corner of the Philippines.?

As government projects go, the task of developing a local government Web site is probably given to the lowest bidder (hopefully, not to some relative or inaanak of the mayor). The problem is that most entities that bid on Web site development are mere Web designers. They are not writers and they are not photographers. All they want to do is put the site online. They have no talent for developing concepts, information campaigns and marketing strategies. You can see it in most dot-gov-dot-ph Web sites. No imagination at all. The Antipolo Web site has violet, orange and red backgrounds with white text. Obviously, the designers know nothing about maximum readability.

Marketing localities for tourism purposes does not have to be an expensive endeavor for the government. Tap local talents?real talents, not relatives and especially not relatives who are also wannabe politicians. Give them an incentive. Allow them to put unobtrusive ads on the sites so they can earn too but at no cost to the government. I understand that a strategy like that presents no opportunity for government officials to ask for budgets and project allocations. And that makes it unappetizing given the pork barrel culture in government.

There are a hundred strategies for marketing local tourism. Ninety ways won?t work. Of the remaining 10, nine will cost the government unnecessary expense. It?s really a matter of choice, vision and priority. It also requires living with the realities of the 21st century.

The author blogs at http://houseonahill.net, http://pinoycook.net and http://www.sassylawyer.com