Dr. Maricel Badilla delivers her Professorial Lecture for AIT’s 49th Founding Anniversary Celebration
February 17, 2024 – Dr. Maricel Gatchalian Badilla delivered a lecture on Collaborative Regional Destination Branding at the UP AIT Seminar Room. She is a recipient of the 2024 Centennial Professorial Chair.
Her lecture is based on the chapter “Cagayan Valley: Your Islands and Valley of Fun–A Case of Regional Branding in the Philippines” published by Springer Nature Singapore’s Tourism in the Philippines: Applied Management Perspectives in 2022, and her collaborative research with her former students, Maria Rosario B. Roscal and Jamia S. Sanico.
Dr. Badilla explained how destination branding is conceptualized and implemented in the Philippine context, and the challenges of destination branding specifically in the case of Cagayan Valley Region. Ms. Roscal and Ms. Sanico shared their research findings from their undergraduate thesis titled “Examining the Brand Identity and Image of a Regional Destination: The Case of the Cagayan Valley Region.” Their research is based on the stakeholder feedback that significantly expanded and validated findings from Dr. Badilla’s research.
The lecture was well attended by faculty, researchers, and students from UP AIT and other tourism schools. UP AIT looks forward to sharing their research in future public lectures and contributing to the advancement of Philippine tourism education and growth of the tourism industry.
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