Ascertain Bliss: phil. travel and tour expo 2012

Showing posts with label phil. travel and tour expo 2012. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

It's more fun in the Philippines ( travex2012 part2)

At the recent Phil. Travel & Tour Expo 2012, zestfully flagged was the newest slogan of our tourism : -
"It's more fun in the Philippines" .
True.
So still here at PTTE 2012 let me take you back to our old : -
" Wag maging dayuhan sa sarili mong bayan" (don't be a stranger in your own country).

It's easy, with all those cheap tour packages being offered left to right, all you have to do is start somewhere in our 7,107 islands you haven't been yet

Lots and lots of booths offering local tour packages at the travex. Personally thu', pre packaged tour doesn't work for me. I'm more of free spirited backpacker traveler who needs more leeway on pocket and time. I hate to be boxed with limited time and places to see. More so, I don't have much on my wallet to afford some expensive tour packages. So the trips you see here in my blog are 99% DIY (do-it-yourself).

Travel expo for me is more of availing on promo accommodations. I didn't have the chance to avail promo airfare there. I grabbed super cheap airfares on the internet. But I preferred to avail accommodations at the expo rather than on line. Cos in the past, I had experienced buying promo deals (accommodations) on line and some of them were wasted unused. Usually, these promos are limited to book outside blockout dates/weekends/holidays which exactly the time I needed these places for my family off school and work. Here at the expo they let me book on the spot, on the dates I prefer including blockout dates. Aside from the fact that expo's special promo rates are much more lower than promo on line. I'm not even talking about regular published rates here. I'm cheap. I love promo deals. haha.

This time, I was particularly scouting on Boracay accommodations. For this year, I have airfare tickets already booked. One with my brother for his birthday and another set with my husband for our anniversary. This is to say, you'll get to see more of Bora here in my blog this year.

Well, if you're going to Bora before me this year and you need some places to stay suggestions, I could refer you to my latest Bora, and from there you could browse back to other hotels at Boracay I've been to.

A flyer was handed to me from 2Go booth. Offered were reasonable passenger ship fares to Boracay and other Visayas and Mindanao destinations. hmmm, that's new. .maybe. .

There were numbers of Coron, Palawan booths but I don't have plans of revisiting that paradise this year so I didn't step- in to anyone of them. Anyway, again if you're into Coron this year, you could visit lots of Coron posts I have here and from there be linked to places I visited in Coron

I thought this was an icecream outlet. Same name of a popular Swiss ice cream brand. I wonder if this resort is Swiss owned too?

Heading to Cebu? Don't ask me, cos the last time I went there, I didn't bother to avail any accommodation. I left Manila on an earliest flight, day toured Cebu and got back home before midnight. Yep => here

No airfare needed. Road trip to the north. Been there at Zoobic also - Tiger Safari, Close Encounter, Croco Loco, and lots of other adventure activities to indulge in Subic.

Extend your road trip to further north => Baguio City. Hotel Elizabeth , I haven't stayed here yet. Maybe next time. The promo rates were catchy thu'. Wish I had availed one. But didn't.

Lots of beautiful booths displays. . I only had limited time to take photos. I just enjoyed myself looking at the the creativity of each booth.

But I had more fun of availing cheap promo rates according to my family calendar. Next.next. will be the international booths offering tour packages. I know, this was Phil. Travel Expo. Let's just be happy that quite a lot of foreign countries participated cos after our own country we could now fly to our global neighbors, right?

see ya,

Monday, February 20, 2012

Phil. Travel Expo 2012 (part1)

daughter (behind the lens) : oops mom, i think you know that pretty woman in stripes over there. .

me: huh? who? (stripe-y woman already at her back when i turned). It happened . . that was my favorite Ms. Tweety De Leon, a.k.a. super model/celebrity of my era. See, even wealthy celeb likes to score cheap deals or was she there as endorser or owner of some travel booths? I couldn't say. .

I didn't see her, I only realized it now upon seeing those snapshots by daughter that it was her she was referring to. I'm compiling photos of my recent hauling of cheap travel deals at Phil. Travel & Tour Expo 2012 held last weekends at SMX. I went there on the first day, a Friday which I reckoned wouldn't be as tight as I expected patron queues would be on the following Saturday and Sunday.

I was almost right cos in general the flock of crowd wasn't yet crazy the time I went. Especially hotel booths. It was so breezy, I was able to avail clever ( by that I meant_ cheap with free dates ) hotel accommodation deals.

Since these booths weren't busy ( it was only me then. .), I was able to discern, dissect every details of their offers, haha. Even bargain for additional requests like early cheak-ins, non-smoking rooms and choice of beds. I was happy that even though those were promo deals, I was given the privilege to book on the spot , on dates of my choice. Including regular block-out dates like holidays and weekends. Usually, based on my personal experience, you can't use these promos on peak seasons, especially on holidays, which I hated most and for awhile stopped me for availing promo deals.

I was only 85% right in presuming that the crowd would be light that day. Cos when I went to try airline booths_ wheeew!!! crazy#*$%^&! Our flag carrier - the Philippine Airline was the blockbuster one, as always. With the massive queue, I knew I wouldn't get a chance to score even a local promo fare. I never had a chance at expos like this, ever! haha.

Check the backpackers (like me) favorite airline booths

Cebu Pacific.

Zest Air.

AirPhil.

Since I don't have the patience and courage to battle a crowd like that, I have resolved long time ago that I'd rather not sleep the whole night at home and virtually combat the internet traffics during airline promos on line instead.

International carriers weren't that crowd-heavy thu'.