• by Larissa Faw , May 13, 2016

Philippine Department of Tourism (PDOT) is embarking on what it calls Southwest Asia's first "social-first" tourist campaign to encourage travelers to visit its country.

The group is working with Beautiful Destinations, which operates the largest travel and lifestyle portfolio on Instagram and Snapchat. This agency's contributors total more than 1,200 influential content creators ranging from National Geographic photographers to everyday travelers with smartphones. 

As part of this Philippines project, five travelers, including the agency's CEO and founder Jeremy Jauncey and head of brand partnerships Tom Jauncey, will travel to top Philippine destinations, including Cebu, the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines, Bohol and Pangasinan, home of the Hundred Islands Natural Park.

The campaign will then share moments throughout each day of the trip on the Beautiful Destinations Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook accounts, as well as PDOT's Instagram and Facebook pages.

In Manila, the PDOT will host an "InstaMeet" between the Beautiful Destinations team members and local travel and lifestyle influencers from the Philippines whose photos have been featured on the Beautiful Destinations Instagram page. 

Collectively, these pages will reach more than 10 million followers. Their videos will also stream outside the Philippine Center at 556 Fifth Avenue, New York, giving passersby a glimpse of the teams’ daily adventures in the Philippines locations they visited.

The tourism board will also use the social first content captured during the trip in traditional marketing efforts.

The Philippines is a good fit for this type of social media campaign, the agency says.

 With the highest percentage of its population highly active on social media compared to any other country, the Philippines has been called the "social media capital of the world."

The tourism bureau is also savvy with social media, having direct messaged founder Jauncey's personal Instagram account to say it would like to partner with the agency.