ASIDE from courting foreign travel and tour operators to market the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) as a gateway to many parts of the Philippines, GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC) said it is also boosting its promotions to sell MCIA locally and make it the Filipinos’ link to countries abroad.
Aines Librodo, GMCAC head for airline marketing and tourism development, said they want to institutionalize the sales missions every year, starting off in Davao.
Last month, GMCAC went to Davao City for a sales mission to promote MCIA’s new flights and services.
The team updated 130 guests from various travel agencies, tour operators, hotels, and corporate accounts of the new flights and different connections out of MCIA.
“Davao is a very important market for us, so we continuously reach out and do dialogues with our tourism stakeholders through the sales missions. However, our effort does not end with the sales missions; it is just one of the many. As a matter of fact, we even have a sales coordinator who is focused in Davao, so we are in constant coordination with the travel industry and the Davao market,” said Librodo, in a statement.
GMCAC announced it will go to Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod, Iloilo and Tacloban for a series of sales missions on Feb. 6, 12, 13, and 20.
MCIA is currently connected to 32 domestic destinations and 20 international destinations, with eight Philippine-based airline partners and 18 foreign airline partners.
In an earlier interview, Librodo said that while they continue to work harder in marketing MCIA overseas, they will also aggressively sell the airport locally, especially since local carriers are mounting new and additional flights to various local destinations.
The Davao sales mission was participated in by Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines, Philippines AirAsia, Cathay Pacific, China Eastern Airlines, Emirates and Tigerair Taiwan. (KOC)