On Filipino cultural icons and heritage.

On Filipino cultural icons and heritage.

On Filipino cultural icons and heritage.

Proceedings of the First International Conference on Social Science, Humanities, Education and Society Development (ICONS) 2020, 30 November 2020, Tegal, Central Java, Indonesia. ICONS is an International Conference hosted by Universitas Pancasakti Tegal. This Conference is arranged to become an annual conference making room for scholars and practitioners in the area of economic, socio-cultural, legal, educational, environmental aspects as well as a combination of all these aspects.

The National Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCAA) advocates the promotions of Sagisag Kultura ng Filipinas (lossely translated as Philippine Cultural Icons) as an initiative to heighten awareness and deepen understsanding of Filipino roots and culture. The thesis examines how tourism and cultural experts perceive selected tourism destinations as cultural icons. This study espuses the tenets of social judgement theory first introduced by Sherif and Hovland in 1961. The range of judgemental latitudes, namely acceptance, rejection, and noncommitment, is determined in a-depth interview. Content analysis is used as data analysis technique that underpins the collection of the expets' perception on the enlistment of 30 tourism destinations as cultural icons. The findings and analysis revealed five themes to descibe the range of acceptance: high historical value, broad acceptance among tourists, outstanding aesthetic appeal, toursim that reflects Filipino identity, and provides complete tourim experience. Then, three themes emerged within the latitude of rejections: caters to a few, lost its natural beauty, and undermines Filipino culture. Finallly, two themes recurred in the latitude of noncommitment: unfamiliarity with the tourism destination and tourism destination fall short compared to other icons. The current findings provide new understanding of Philippine cultural icons, specifically on the intrinsic values of each selected tourism destination. The study contributes to existing knowledge by utilizing the social judgement theory in the field of tourism and the context of Philippine culture. Taken together, this research will serve as reference for future studies on icons, cultural iconsm and cultural tourism icons.