Philippines hopes isle-name raffle woos Japan’s wary touristsAugust 25th, 2005 by Roy Berman |
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Would you like to have one of the 1,107 islands in the Philippines named after you?That’s the come-on of the Philippine government in a bid to woo more Japanese tourists.
As part of its aggressive marketing to boost the country’s sagging tourism industry, Philippine officials, with the help of Japanese public relations experts, hatched the idea to raffle off the naming of 25 islands to Japanese tourists.
Dubbed “An Island in Your Name,” Philippine Tourism Secretary Joseph Durano hopes the effort will lure more young and adventurous Japanese tourists to visit the Philippines, a nation considered dangerous by some Japanese.
The promotional event will kick off in October.
The 25 Japanese raffle winners will not own the islands, Durano explained. Instead, the winners “will have the prestige of having these islands named after them for a period of one year.”
Who wants to bet that one of the winner’s names ‘their’ island Takeshima?
August 25th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
I’ll take that bet. The Takeshima thing isn’t nearly as huge an issue in Japan as it is in Korea. So unless either someone coincidentally named Takeshima or some hardcore 2-channeler goes to the Philippines it’s unlikely to happen.
So how much?