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Saturday, August 05, 2006
Batuhan: Regaining paradise lost 2
By Allan S. B. Batuhan
Foreign Exchange
In 2005, the Philippine tourism industry proudly declared that it had earned around $2.5 billion in revenues. No small feat, considering that in the same year, overall gross domestic product was only $98 billion.
Put in proper context, however, it seems that we have underperformed vis-à-vis our full potential. We need not look far—indeed only as far as our closest Asean neighbors—to get a glimpse of what could have been for our own industry.
For the same period, Thailand’s take from tourism exceeded our own by almost five-fold. Indonesia, although its revenues were dampened quite significantly by the spate of terrorist bombings in its star attraction of Bali, still managed to pull in twice the income we earned.
Further afield, a Mediterranean destination like Turkey consistently manages to pull in $5 billion from foreign visitors, notwithstanding that it too cruelly fell victim to terrorist activity that saw the fatal bombing of the British embassy and the Standard Chartered Bank in Istanbul.
In her recent State of the Nation Address, President Arroyo triumphantly declared the success of her tourism efforts, citing the increasing inflow of visitors to such popular tourist destinations as Cebu, Bohol and, of course, Boracay. What she failed to mention was how we fared against such performance benchmarks as the ones mentioned above.
I am, of course, no expert in tourism from an insider’s point of view. But from a customer’s perspective, I can clearly see where our neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and beyond have managed to outstrip us in terms of performance. And having seen what other destinations have to offer, I believe I also have some insights on how we can do better.
Think like a customer for once—how would you go about planning your dream vacation? How would you draw up your shortlist of destinations, and then how would you decide on your eventual choice? Easy isn’t it? From marketing information, of course!
As a resident of a Western country, every night I am bombarded with tourism advertisements for Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, Bulgaria, Dubai, India and every place else except the Philippines.
Of course, to those tourists who know no better, the Philippines is there and then automatically excluded from their likely list of candidates. As our marketing friends know by heart, “Share of Voice” translates to “Share of Mind” that, in the end, results in “Share of Market.”
Some will defend this lack of market presence by saying that it takes money to put on a global advertising campaign. Of course, it does! But no profit was ever made without expense, and the tourism business is no exception to this hard and fast business rule.
Clearly, a glitzy advertising blitz throughout the Western world would be no ironclad guarantee of success on its own. After all, it is still generally true that no amount of good advertising ever saved a bad product from failure. Sooner or later, the proof of the pudding will have to be in the eating.
The same thing goes for our tourism industry as well. Compared to our best of breed competitors in other parts of the world, many of our tourism services and infrastructure still pale in comparison to theirs. Therefore, even if we do manage to pull in visitors through effectively getting our welcome message across, we may still not be able to subreach of trust and confidencestain enough visitor interest over the long haul.
(Continued next week).
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 5, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here.
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