More than Fun: Expats rank Philippines friendliest country in Asia - Forbes.com

By: InterAksyon.com
January 13, 2012 3:09 PM

InterAksyon.com means BUSINESS

Not counting Australia and New Zealand, Forbes.com ranks the Philippines as the "Friendliest Country" in Asia, particularly for expatriate workers and executives.

Globally, Forbes.com said the Philippines was eighth on a list of countries best suited for the creation of "new support structure(s), which... is among the biggest challenges when relocating." The country was ranked behind New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, the United States, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The Philippines came just ahead of Spain and Malaysia, the only other Asian country in Forbes' top ten Friendlist Countries.

Forbes based its ranking on HSBC's Expat Explorer Survey, the latest of which came out in December 2011. The HSBC survey rated Thailand as the most favored country overall globally for expatriate work.

"HSBC surveyed 3,385 expatriates in 100 countries between May and July 2011. Respondents rated their host countries on a slew of factors related to economics, raising children and overall experience," Forbes.com explained. "To determine which were the friendliest, Forbes isolated the results in four categories: ability to befriend locals, success in learning the local language, capacity for integrating themselves into the community, and ease in which they fit into the new culture. All play into the ability of expats to create a new support structure...which is among the biggest challenges when relocating."

While the Philippines rated eighth in the overal HSBC survey, outperformed by Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia given overall packages, access to amenities and services, and general quality of living as expatriates, Forbes' isolation of key social indicators gave the Philippines a higher ranking, relative to its neighbors, in the specific area of "friendliness" to expat adjustment and enjoyment.

The Philippines is "friendly on wallets, too," Forbes noted, with "47 percent of respondents reporting an increase in access to luxuries, including domestic staff, swimming pools, and owning properties."

"Because a majority of expats are so focused on closing the life they are leaving, they end up depressed at some point after relocating, because by not focusing on creating their new life before arriving, they end up with ‘nothing’—no friends locally, nothing familiar, a feeling of loss," Forbes quoted New York-based expat coach Heather Markel, who heads the Expat Coach Association, a trade organization with 120 members. "Other challenges include learning a new language, experiencing new foods, more or less convenience, how genders might be treated. The sense of loss for what they liked in the culture they left can be a big challenge, as can a changed lifestyle."

See Forbes' report on "The World's Friendliest Countries" here.

HSBC's Expat Exlorer Survey 2011 can be seen here.

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