“WHEN does tourism become terrorism?” is one prevailing topic of tourism officers during meetings and seminars.
In the Tourism Security and Safety conference in Davao last year, I had the opportunity to exchange opinions with a few Mindanaoan Tourism Officers who, instead of expressing their frustration over armed-conflict (real terrorism) in some areas of the promise land, chose to impress upon us that tourism becomes terrorism when it turns out to be unbearable to the residents; where they become victims and not beneficiaries of the said tourism systems.
The basic idea that tourist spending boosts the economy of the recipient community, can sometimes be abused, and be used to justify unabated tourist influx beyond a community’s “carrying capacity.” For instance, while we were being given our tattoos, a resident of Buscalan in Tinglayan, Kalinga commented that sometimes, they can’t move freely and enjoy a peaceful day because of numerous visitors.
In La Trinidad, a friend who lives near the Strawberry Farms, would complain to me about the very heavy traffic in their neighborhood during weekends and holidays. In Baguio, residents will post in social media their woes regarding tourists’ wastes and their voluminous number during the city’s festivals and special days that clog most of the city’s roads. In many popular mountain trekking sites, environmentalists would often criticize the limitless number of hikers that tend to damage the mountain’s ecological assets.
These are all common sentiments of people in many parts of our country where community residents felt that more tourists meant more traffic, more garbage, fewer water supplies and increased environmental degradation.
But for most tourism stakeholders like us, what will be the proper response to those dissents knowing that thousands of businesses, employment, and livelihood are also dependent on said tourist arrivals and related tourism-activities?
Moreover, “what should we do so that tourism will not be seen as terrorism by the community?”
One answer for us tourism workers, aside from sustainable tourism policies and mechanisms, infrastructure development, and urban management, is to “decongest” those heavily visited areas and promote its neighboring destinations. This policy is in-line with the Department of Tourism's One-Step project - a convergence program with other agencies like Department of Social Welfare and Development and even foreign organizations, which aims to include and promote less affluent communities or destinations in the tourism value chain. This program provides for more direct interventions which will create jobs and economic opportunities, benefit the poor, and ultimately, uplift rural communities. Because really, there are places, and villages around the country which certainly need economic opportunities for their people; they need people to buy in their sari-sari stores, hikers who will employ them as guides and porters, visitors who will eat in their restaurants and ride in their tricycles, tourists who will purchase their handicrafts and wares…people who will share and spread their wealth so that the poor father can put food on the table, so that the single-mother can send her child to school, so that the young laborers can help their parents, and, perhaps, so that we can have a better world.
This “holistic” view of tourism has the best potential of spreading economic development to many areas of the country and hopefully, allow for more movement of money which is usually confined to a few destinations that are already heavily promoted. After all, we have to consider the welfare of more Filipinos especially those living in poverty.
This should surely be tourism, and not terrorism.
-o0o-
To decongest the La Trinidad main thoroughfare and Strawberry Farms especially on weekends, we, in the Benguet Association of Tourism Officers, are always encouraging Tour operators, and guides to include the Benguet Agri-Tourism and Cultural village at Wangal (just near the Strawberry Farm- Puguis exit) in their promoted tour itineraries, and finally use the Longlong road as an exit route going to Baguio City. We are also encouraging our tourists to take our PUVs instead of using their own cars - Baguio and Benguet have the friendliest and most honest taxi drivers in the country! Enjoy the summer everyone!