DESPITE rising fuel and food prices, many stakeholders in the food and tourism industries are optimistic about achieving some growth by the end of this year.
Part of the optimism stems from the peso’s depreciation against the US dollar, said Clarito Fruelda of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry during the opening of four events—the Cebu Goes Culinary 2008, Woomach Cebu Expo, Industrial Machinery, and the Total Office Products and Services Show—at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino yesterday.
Fruelda said the peso’s decline would be favorable to exporters and would probably result in an increase in exports.
The peso closed at 45.55 against the greenback Wednesday, from 41-$1 level in January.
Marco Protacio, president of the Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Association of Cebu (HRRAC), said the hotel industry also favors the recent development.
Happy
“We’re a bit happy with it because we peg our rates on the dollar,” he said in an interview.
But while hotels, resorts and restaurants that peg rates on the dollar will get wider margins because of the rising value of the greenback against the peso, Protacio said industry players are also adversely affected by the same development since many of their food ingredients are imported.
The tourism industry is not immune to the effects of the rising prices of fuel and other goods, said Protacio, also general manager of Waterfront Cebu City Hotel.
He admitted that while HRRAC members see some growth this year, it “would not be as good” as the previous years.
“We’re hopeful that things will get better,” he said. “(At the start of the year), 95 of hotels, resorts and restaurants projected positive growth. But we had to re-forecast. (Outlook) is still good. We are still doing better than last year but not as well as we hope,” he added.
Price adjustments
Due to rising prices, he said some restaurants have also raised rates, although the adjustments are “minimal.”
But Protacio has some good news for customers. He said hotels and resorts in Cebu that were contemplating of raising their rates last month shelved such plans for fear of “shaking the market.”
In an earlier interview, he said that if hotels in Cebu will not adjust their rates in June, prices will remain unchanged throughout this year.
“It’s not that bad yet, we can still manage,” he said.
It’s a different story for bakeshops, however.
Christopher Ebisa, president of the Cebu Bakery Association, said bakery owners have already reached a wall—as they can
no longer reduce the size of bread, sacrifice quality or make labor suffer, they have increased prices.
“Sauna, mao ra ang presyo sa pandesal pero gipagamyan lang. Di naman pwede pagamyan, mora na unya ug jolen kadak-a (Before, pandesal was made smaller but the price remained the same. But we can no longer reduce the size, it might look like marble ball),” he told Sun.Star Cebu.
Pandesal is a common fixture at an average Filipino household’s breakfast table.
Ebisa pointed out that the price of flour has gone up significantly, from P600 last year to the current P900 to P1,200 per sack.
He said that even by increasing prices, the profit margins of bakery owners remain small. “But some are only able to break
even,” he added.
He said bakeshops, particularly micro and small operations, cannot afford to impose significant price increases because they would be alienating their customers, who are also suffering from the effects of inflation. (LAP)
