Tourism: Not just an annual event
The deafening drums muted, the energizing beats dissipated and the equally revitalized crowd degenerated. Simply put, that’s where we are right now. That unequivocally means that the tourist-drawing week-long Sinulog 2015 revelries are finally over.
However, as it has always been, in the midst of this annual religious observance, the issue about commercialization or politicization will be at fever pitch. All these skirmishes though, whether political or canonically related, will simply die as the festival’s fireworks vanish in the night. What certainly shall stay is the significant impact of the economic fruition that was brought about by this once-in-a-year tourism-related celebration to the City and Province of Cebu. The question though is, how long?
Indeed, tourism’s potential cannot be overlooked. The fact is, even if some countries in the world maybe in chaos, globally, tourism has continued to flourish. A survey published by the World Economic Forum (The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013) confirms this. In the 2013 survey, it seems that it has fully returned to pre-crisis level. Notably, in the same report, Rochelle Turner of WTTC and Zachary Sears of Oxford Economics revealed that “using proprietary data for 20 countries, including both emerging and advanced economies, they find that Travel & Tourism is one of the most important industries in terms of absolute size of employment and economic output”. They described “how the industry employs more than 98 million people directly, representing over 3 percent of overall global employment”. In fact, they further concluded that “when indirect and induced impacts are included, they calculate that the industry contributes to around one in every eleven jobs worldwide”.
Clearly, therefore, the T&T sector remains very significant for the world economy. It accounts, among others, a sizeable share of global employment and has also provided an important opportunity for developing countries to improve and aim for bigger shares of the pie. Consequently, uniquely blessed with at least 7,100 islands, we aren’t letting this opportunity pass our way unnoticed. In fact, to both present and previous administration’s (Arroyo) credit, this is one industry the country is trying to develop to the max. As a result, the 2013 survey showed that the Philippines is the “most improved country” in the Asia Pacific region, “ranking 16th regionally and 82nd overall”, up 12 places since the last survey (2011). We ranked highly on account of our “strengths in natural resources (44th), price competitiveness (24th), and a very strong—and improving—prioritization of the Travel & Tourism industry (this indicator ranks 15th, as government spending on the sector as a percentage of GDP is now 1st in the world, and tourism marketing and branding campaigns are seen to be increasingly effective)”.
Undeniably, we’ve promoted our tourism industry to the hilt. For one, the country’s tourism promotion is at its best. On a sustained basis, the government promotes the country’s tourism investment potentials and places of interest for opportunity-seeking business travelers and leisure lovers, respectively. Its hype has always been great and undoubtedly expensive. In Cebu, however, the question is, what are we promoting? Sinulog? Then, the truth is, it gives us a week bounty. Considering that a year has fifty two weeks, it simply means, a week of abundance and fifty one weeks of scarcity.
Clearly, therefore, an annual event like Sinulog is not enough. So that some countries that are solely dependent on festival-related tourism had to do other things. For sustainability reasons, these countries have organized trade expos in between their festivals to have constant influx of opportunity-seeking travelers and leisure lovers alike.
Moreover, Cebu might take pride of its long stretches of beaches as if we are the only island that has it. While it’s noteworthy, we must not forget that Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand have longer, cleaner and more serene beaches too. Yet, despite their natural gift, they’ve developed theme parks, amusement parks and other places of interest. Why can’t we do the same through private sector initiatives by giving the private sector local tax breaks or incentives? The LGUs, on the other hand, must make sure that these places of interest are reachable by providing the necessary infrastructure. Then, jointly, all tourism players (LGUs included) must make a collective effort in promoting the island. The tour and travel operators, businessmen as they are, will certainly package tours if the products are saleable and reachable.
So that, through initiatives like these, tourism in Cebu will be a daily affair, not a yearly event.
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