Editorial: A whale of a difference

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

ONE of the more colorful interpretations of the new tourism promotion slogan for the Philippines shows a diver swimming behind a whale shark, with this slogan: “Chasing tail. More fun in the Philippines.”

While most of us quibbled over the tourism department’s new campaign—-and how well or how poorly the various takes on the slogan met personal standards for originality and wit—-officials of Oslob town in southern Cebu had more practical matters to deal with.

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Large groups of tourists have begun arriving in town to see or swim with the whale sharks, and conservation groups have started wringing their hands about some practices, like feeding the sea creatures.

Already, Oslob has passed an ordinance that punishes those who harm or kill the whale sharks. The Provincial Government also revealed plans to build a viewing deck and briefing area for tourists.

What appears to have happened here is a fortunate accident. One day, the whale sharks just started appearing close to the town’s shores. How long they’ll keep doing so is anybody’s guess. But Oslob suddenly found itself with a marketable tourism product, around which a community-based tourism project can be built.

Mayor Ronald Guaren credits a YouTube video, followed by word of mouth, for drawing attention to the town’s new tourist attraction. Now, the challenge is for the town to manage this attraction well—including regulating the number of tours per day and teaching tourists about precautions for their and the whale sharks’ safety.

Oslob, like other locales with the potential for community-based tourism, also needs to have a good look at its infrastructure: are there clean and comfortable accommodations? Are transportation facilities efficient and safe? Are people charging reasonable rates for tourism goods and services?

Successful tourism projects require communities that are prepared to welcome strangers into their midst. In Oslob’s case, the strangers they need to care for aren’t just the two-legged sort: can locals conduct the tours in a manner that will minimize harm to the whale sharks and their environment?

In the age of social networks, it is easy enough to call attention to tourist attractions. The new tourism campaign tries to do that, by encouraging us to see what makes Filipino attractions and the Filipino way of life so appealing. Lucky Oslob. It now has an opportunity to prove Philippine tourism’s naysayers wrong.