it's officially the bur mon in case you missed it where here in the Philippines people start counting down to the Christmas holidays and one thing to look out for as you plan your family trips is the hospitality industry's annual sale which kicked off September 1st and here to talk to us through this exciting program we have Celeste T raldo the hotel sales and marketing Association secretary as well as the general manager of the lynon suet that good evening good evening good evening thank you so much for coming all the way here to talk to us about this so you call this the SOS September online sale tell us all about it well this actually initiative started in 2020 during the height of the pandemic we're thinking of way on how to help the hotels and the industry survive so we thought of coming up with this online platform wherein the member hotels can uh sell their products including rooms FNB at a heavily discounted rates at the you know at the convenience of their own homes because at the time no one can go out to buy and to to to travel and uh we started that in 2020 and continued on until this year this is actually our year five already t wait before we carry on um do you do did you plan it really to be on September 1 because it's already officially the Christmas season here in the Philippines right yeah this is in preparation of the Christmas yeah okay and then next question would be during covid you went online but before that did this sale this SOS sale already exist or was it only born during covid it was born during the the covid time so it was it witnessed the survival the Revival and growth of the local tourism so so what are we talking about we're talking about deep discounts to hotels around the country yes up to um 75% off we have 85 member hotels and resort that participated on this year's event wherein it was it was divided into nine clusters from Lon up to davo and you can see different promotions uh that you can only find on this on our website what is the website it's uh it's actually the hotel sales and marketing websites HS sm. org.ph SOS so if I want to buy uh uh hotel vouchers that are heavily discounted that's the where I have to go I can't go straight to the hotels themselves no no you have to go to our website purchase the the voucher and then after purchasing you receive a voucher and then you will call the hotel directly for booking so you basically buy discount coupons or vouchers from the hsma site yes and then once you have that copy I'm sure it's like you can screenshot it or save the number then you go to the hotel or Resort in question the specific one and thenook yes okay so of course subject to availability and subject to close out date but most of the vouchers are one year or even more in terms of validity so oh I don't have to have dates already I can just buy the vouchers and you know for a future trip in mind with a future trip in mind and you can also use that as a gift for your loved one so as as mentioned Christmas is approaching so it's one of the best gifts that you can give this coming holidays what are some of the popular uh destinations destinations hotels Resorts that uh based on previous years people have really taken to well we have a number of hotels from Bai like Crimson Discovery Lin Baka that are part of the promotions we also have you know near hotels like the farm at San bito is part of the the promotions and majority of the hotels in the Metro Manila are also part of the promotion station yes yes so so people uh also buying vouchers for hotels in Metro Manila right including my hotel s is also part of the the promotion so there are several hotels that you can choose from and this is the first time that you can see this hotel uh giving as much as 75% discount so I hope our viewers won't miss this opportunity to get I'm curious deal because uh every Christmas I do leave with my family so I'm not sure what happens here you know um do Manila Metro Manila hotels get full like full or filled up because a lot of balik bant also Al come back during that time right right usually December is a peak period but uh that's why we started the Sal as this month so that they can plan ahead they have to book in advance because normally the peak period is at 24 the 31st but if I believe if they book in advance and they can you can have a you know a good score a good deal what's been the reception like since you started this program well we started for this year we started this September 1st and for days we're we already able to sell like 3 million worth of vouchers million pencil worth of vouchers and for the past four years I believe we have sold around 98.3 million Revenue so that's the amount of assistance we were able to extend to Our member hotels especially during the first two to three years of after the pandemic what does that say about the Filipino traveler are you seeing more Filipino travel traveler uh you know visit domestic locations places or are they still choosing to go abroad more when we started well it pleted during the pandemic in 2020 but we have seen um significant increase in the domestic trips from 2022 it went up to 102 million domestic DP to9 in 2023 we Contin we expect the trend to continue this year although maybe not at that rate growth rate because there are also other options abroad but you know the reason why why we are really pushing for this uh September sale is because we want to fuel continue to fuel the domestic tourism and enti our Filipino travelers to prioritize our destinations that's what I wanted to to ask you about that I mean you've been working in this Association for a while I'm assuming and uh of course during Co domestic travel mostly because people couldn't afford taking 15 days to quarantine in a hotel right when you come back from abroad so domestic it's so much easier and a lot of my friends they traveled to other local destinations for the first time ever right so what new destinations has the pandemic the lockdown unlocked based on your observations L well we have uh domestic tourist flocking Bohol now uh Iloilo um even drive uh within Drive uh distance properties in Batangas so several there there are several destinations that they can explore what's the what about the uh uh the traffic from overseas has it picked up has it gotten back to pre-pandemic levels uh you mean the foreign Travelers coming into the Philippines okay the last update that I have during our hsma briefing was uh we are we are still far from the P the prepandemic uh number um but I think we will be hitting at least 6 million international arrival this year so a little bit short than our 7.7 million Target but we're getting there and we're optimistic that you know in 2026 we'll be um surpassing the 2019 level what seems to be the hold up in terms of trying to get the numbers back to prepandemic levels well one of the thing is the capacity of our Airlines we have there's limmited uh uh do you mean the flights the number of flights have not recovered yes yes I think because of the limited also aircraft so although we have more hotels now a lot of new hotels open but you know unless we increase the capacity of our Airlines or airports then that's a time that we can accommodate more tourists uh compared to other Assan you know neighbors may we also our airports increase the capacity of our airport airports a so infrastructure still infrastructure so the infu hasn't quite kept up with the demand that's what we're pushing the government to prioritize and how has that been well there are number of airports being developed now there's a privatization that is happening in the NAA that's why I've heard that some of the flights will be moved to Clark but I think is I think the question you guys prepared for that because that's supposed to happen this month September yeah it will benefit some of the hotels in that area but I'm not quite sure with The Travelers because it's you know yeah going to yeah it's still a challenge wait so wait uh we were talking earlier and you you said you wanted to um talk a little bit about the revenues of these September online sale I think we have that as a graphic if we could just pull that up very quickly um just taking a look at what the numbers are like there we go there that's what I mentioned that we you know in foure time we were able to generate 8.3 million revenue for our member Hotel this is just for September for the online sale in September yes for the past four years and we're hopeful that we can you know achieve a higher Revenue this year yeah 98.3 how much are you targeting this year well we're targeting of 25 million for this for this year W for for the monthlong sale yes um so far we're at 3 million already for the first two days what's the general demographic of the people who are buying these vouchers are they families are they you know Millennial genz Travelers are they couples are they business people what are they who are they well all of the about different segments so we have we have uh families even balik bayans uh they can there foreigners buying also is there a way for you to track it since it's online we also have a number of foreign uh tourist buying online because it has been an Institutional event already so it's it's been four years so they know the website and even if it's it's not September we have received we have been receiving queries on when can we activate the discounts again so they're really waiting for this month this period of time for hsma to to activate the promotions summer I know that's peak season also but are you thinking about doing a summer sale yeah well that's one thing that we can consider in the future but you know they can buy their vouchers now and they can use summer that's right oh yeah that's right you said it's one year validity yeah it's mining of one year and some hotels even extend even have vouchers without validity so and again uh if I for people who want to buy how do they do that where do they go well they have to go to the HSM website ww. hs.org uh. pH SOS and then from there they can see different destinations and then they can just just choose the promo that they want to Avail of right I'm on the website it is working s.org and again there's hotels uh on sale up to 75% off all across the nation that's in across lison besid total of 85 hotels and resorts look at this eight participating hotels in barakai nine participating across Palawan late and Dava 10 in cibu seven Manila and Makati so six in Bol it's pretty it's pretty well spread out even done and it ends September 30th midnight of September 30th midnight of September 30th so they have until then to book their do do are they ration though are there certain rations for some of the more popular hotels like for instance the ones in boraka you mentioned are there limited number of vouchers or well it depends on the properties because uh I know they have uh limited allotment for some of the really nice promos so better start buying them so you need some pretty like fancy hotels really nice hotel yeah and if you could get them at 75% off why not right okay uh we're going to have to leave that there thank you so much for joining us tonight c t raldo the hotel sales and marketing Association secretary and also general manager of the lynon Suites [Music]