15 May 2006 – Philippine Ambassador to Stockholm Victoria S. Bataclan reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs that the Filipino community in Taby, Sweden, through the Filippinska Internationella Kultur Foreningen Nordost (Philippine International Cultural Association Northeast) successfully organized a tourism night at the town hall of the Taby, a northern suburb of Stockholm, on 6 May 2006.

Assisted by the Philippine Embassy in Stockholm and the Department of Tourism office in London, the members of the Filipino association in Taby performed songs and dances corresponding to various destinations in the Philippines.  An audio-visual presentation, with annotations in English and Swedish, complemented the cultural show.

Ambassador Bataclan led the Filipino association in entertaining Swedish guests from the local community in Taby, mainly pensioners and families who have not been to the Philippines. The project aimed to attract more Swedish visitors to the Philippines with a view to promoting wellness and adventure trips as a Philippine niche.

Philippine costumes and handicrafts were also exhibited. The evening was capped by a sumptuous buffet of authentic Filipino food.

This tourism night in Taby follows a steady stream of Philippine tourism promotion events in the region, notably at the Reiseliv tourism fair in Lillestrom, Norway, in January 2006 and TUR, Scandinavia's leading trade and consumer travel exhibition, in Gothenburg, Sweden, last March 2006.

The Philippine Embassy has observed that the Philippines is attracting more and more attention in the Nordic travel market.   At least two writers of travel magazines are traveling to the Philippines to do a special reportage in the first semester of 2006 alone.   In January this year, the Swedish TV production company, Strix AB, chose Palawan as the location of a special Dutch edition of Expedition Robinson, a popular reality TV program in Europe.

The latest statistics for visitor arrivals confirm the growing interest of Nordic travelers in the Philippines.   More than 31,000 Nordic tourists (except from Iceland) visited the Philippines in 2005, representing a healthy 16.5% growth over the 2004 figure. As a market for Philippine tourism, Sweden posted the highest increase among Nordic visitors at 23.4%. Tourism Attaché  Domingo Ramon C. Enerio is elated by the "resurgence of Scandinavian tourist traffic to the Philippines.  We hope to exceed the record highs attained in 1998." END