The Philippines said on Wednesday it had pulled its latest online tourism campaign after critics panned the rebrand and warned that unwary surfers could easily end up at a porn Web site instead.
The site, www.beautifulpilipinas.com, was taken down on Tuesday just a day after it was launched by the tourism department, said Evelyn Macayayong, interim head of the ministry’s tourist information office.
Critics panned the decision to use the local spelling of the country’s name, warning that a site with a very similar web address was pornographic.
Macayayong said the domain name would be changed, but the main reason the site was pulled was that readers had pointed out other errors.
“We are currently editing some grammatical and typographical errors on the write-ups, which have been observed by our readers,” Macayayong said. “Most of these have been lifted from the old website as well as affiliate sites such as those of the regional and overseas offices. The revised version will be ready as soon as the corrections are made.”
The rebranding itself — which featured a candy-colored logo including the slogan, a coconut tree, an endangered primate called a tarsier, the sun and waves — also came in for criticism.
Some called for the country’s eight-year-old tourism slogan, “Wow Philippines,” to be brought back.
Posts on networking sites about the “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” (Philippines What a Beauty) Web site described it as “bland,” and “lacking punch.”
Filipino tourism industry pundit Ivan Henares wrote on his popular blog, “Ivan About Town”: “I can’t understand why [we] want to get rid of a brand our country has worked so hard to build and invested so much money on.”
In response, Macayayong referred reporters to Tourism Minister Alberto Lim’s speech at Monday’s launch.
“It is a radical departure from what our neighbors are doing, and to the faint of heart, a bit risky,” Lim had said, defending the rebranding as a result of market research conducted by an unnamed major advertising firm.
Macayayong said she could not say when a revised version of the new Web site would be back up.
The Philippines has been struggling to shake off its image as an unsafe destination after a botched police rescue of foreign tourists seized in a bus by a dismissed policeman in August that left eight Hong Kong residents dead.
The ministry said in a statement that tourist arrivals in the eight months to August were up 15 percent from a year earlier to 2.3 million.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number