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Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Tourism players told: Focus on 3 RP hubs
IN seeking to increase foreign tourist arrivals, the Philippines should focus on selling just a few destinations first.
The industry also needs to seriously look at more competitively pricing its packages, according to a private individual involved in trying to bring in afive million foreign tourists to the country in the next six years.
Samie Lim, co-chairman of tourism of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), said the group has come up with an advocacy for tourism which recommends that the country zero in on a few products, rather than try to sell all its 7,100 islands at the same time.
“The problem is there are too many products. Customers can’t remember which island to go to. We should zero in on a few products for the first year,” particularly the three international gateways of Manila, Cebu and Davao, he said in a press conference at Laguna Garden Café last week.
For the next year, two more gateways may be added, he said.
Another problem is the budget for tourism, an area in which the largest business group in the country could help.
Lim said travel taxes collected were not going toward tourism projects, which is why the PCCI is now lobbying to bring this money back to tourism.
Expensive
He also raised the issue of the expensive pricing by hotels and airlines, saying an overnight stay at a Philippine hotel could cost as much as $200 (P11,200).
For the same amount of money, he said, a traveler could already spend three days and two
nights in Hong Kong.
This is probably why it took the Philippines 25 years to bring its annual foreign tourist numbers from one million to two million, the PCCI official revealed.
Lim urged tourism players “to think of volume” when pricing their products, referring to the strategy of pricing low in order to encourage patronage by more clients.
The Department of Tourism (DOT), under Secretary Ace Durano, is now planning to bring in five
million tourists annually before the Arroyo administration ends.
But Lim said that in a talk with members of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the province of Cebu was planning to bring in five million tourists to the island alone.
The Philippines’ best performance ever was in 1997, when foreign tourist arrivals hit 2.2 million.
During his visit to Manila last month, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Malaysia was already getting 14-15 million tourists annually.
Hong Kong received over 14 million tourists in the first eight months of this year alone, while Thailand is targeting 12 million tourists this year.
To diversify its tourism market, the country is now looking to Europe as a source of tourists.
Earlier this month, Department of Trade and Industry 7 Regional Director Asteria Caberte told Sun.Star that there is a big market waiting to be tapped in Europe.
“This is why we are transferring EU best practices of ecotourism to Asean. We are preparing Asean countries for European tourists,” she said during the European Commission-Asean Ecotourism workshop at Waterfront Cebu City Hotel.
The Philippines has traditionally relied on Japan and the United States for the bulk of its tourists.
Paul Matell, Swedish consultant on ecotourism for the European Union (EU) Commission, pointed to diving facilities in the Philippines and “nature that is very specific,” like indigenous animals and flowers, as things that Europeans would like to see and experience.
Caberte said DOT 7 Regional Director Patria Aurora Roa has identified Bohol and Palawan as possible ecotourism sites.
Speaking recently to a business mission from Singapore at Shangri-la’s Mactan Island Resort, Trade and Industry Secretary Cesar Purisima said the seas around the Philippines are the most diverse in the world. “Sixty percent of the world’s corals can be found only in the Philippines.”
However, ecotourism involves a lot more than just serving up a nature adventure.
Ecotourism would mean providing also for the needs of the population where the tourist spot is. Environmental protection should also involve the locals, Caberte said.
Matell distinguished adventure tourism from ecotourism, saying diving, is not ecotourism if one destroys the tourist sites, say, by using fossil fuel, which is not renewable, to get to the diving sites.
He said ecotourism involves putting in place waste handling systems, wastewater treatment systems and even legislation to make the tourism sustainable. (CTL)
(November 23, 2004 issue)
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