Tuesday, October 21, 2008 DOT brings H. Kong travel agents to Cebu in bid to boost tourism
THE Department of Tourism (DOT) is determined to get more people from Hong Kong to come to the Philippines and bask in the country’s beaches and other leisure destinations.
As part of its efforts, the tourism agency brought the Hong Kong Association of Travel Agents (Hata) to Cebu to hold its 36th Overseas Convention at the Shangri-La’s Mactan Island Resort Hotel.
About 120 delegates out of Hata’s more than 260 members attended the three-day convention about providing quality service amid financial crisis that started last Saturday.
The last time the group held its convention in the country was in the 1980s.
“The fact that we got them back here is really a vote of confidence. This is part of our efforts to bring back the Hong Kong market to the country,” Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano told reporters at the welcome dinner organized for Hata delegates last Friday.
Durano said that in the 1980s, many people from Hong Kong visited the Philippines, but their numbers have declined over the years.
He cited a DOT survey conducted last year where they found out that Germans preferred the Philippines more as a leisure destination than the Hong Kong market.
“Germany is so far away, so that opened our eyes. ... Maybe because Hong Kong is so near, we haven’t given them much importance. From that survey, (we learned) that there is a need to reintroduce the Philippines to them,” he said.
Durano noted that tourist arrivals from Hong Kong started rebounding last year due to strong relations in trade, better promotions in Hong Kong, and the availability of more leisure destinations and more flights through low-budget carriers.
Rica Bueno, DOT head for Team Asia Pacific, said more than 100,000 people from Hong Kong visited the Philippines last year, making it one of the top 10 tourist markets of the country.
In the past seven months, this market experienced an eight percent growth, she said.
In Cebu, Hong Kong was the fifth largest tourist market with a 3.20 percent share of the foreign tourist arrivals for January to June 2008.
The 10,661 Hong Kong tourists who arrived in the first semester of this year represented a 40 percent increase from the 7,633 who arrived in the same period last year.
“We want the Hong Kong tourist market to continuously grow in the country by eight to 10 percent year on year,” said Durano.
Hata chairman Paul Leung said his group is bent on increasing traffic between the Philippines and Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong has the facility to market the Philippines. I think all of us here are trying to find out what the Philippines can offer so that we will know how to market the place when we go back,” he said.
He recommended that the Philippines introduce more island resorts like Cebu, Bohol and Boracay with their “beaches, sun, good weather and affordable shopping,” which the people of Hong Kong and mainland China will be attracted to. (NRC)
