Second class acts
While on a weekend staycation with my wife at a newly-opened hotel in Mandaue City, I was surprised to see mostly Chinese and Korean tourists checked in at the hotel. Most recent tourism figures validated my observation.
The Department of Tourism has counted a total of 126,000 Chinese visitors in Central Visayas from January to April this year, according to a report by The FREEMAN. That's a 78 percent growth in the first four months of the year, says the DOT.
After Korea and Japan, China is the region's third top market for tourists. This was a result of a much improved relations between the Philippines and China following President Rodrigo Duterte's pivot to China, which some experts label as a "pirouette" for the sake of making traditional allies US and Japan jealous into giving more concessions to the Philippines. But I would leave the latter topic to the experts.
International tourist arrival in Cebu is expected to follow a brisk growth rate in the years to come. Last year, foreign tourist arrivals in Central Visayas grew by 9.66 percent from 1.67 million to 1.83 million, with Cebu accounting for 82 percent of that. That's still a far cry from Bali, Indonesia's 4.5 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2016 and Chiang Mai, Thailand's 2.8 million foreign visitors in 2015.
Much has been said about the need to develop and maintain more supporting infrastructure in order to accommodate the growing number of foreign and domestic tourists.
However, it is equally important to consider how prepared are we as hosts to fix up our attitudes and old habits as a community in order to assure our visitors a pleasant experience.
There is no question about our vaunted hospitality and genuine kindness to visitors. Those are our inherent advantages that make me wonder why we're still far behind our neighboring countries in attracting foreign tourists.
Although we may not like to talk about it, the two things that hold us back from becoming a leader in tourism in Asia are our lack of discipline and lack of regard for the collective interest of the community.
The case of former beauty queen Maria Isabel Lopez during the recently concluded ASEAN Summit is an example. Lopez admitted to moving the road divider cones and driving in the ASEAN lane, as was also recorded in her smartphone.
Lopez said that her becoming a second class citizen in our own country prompted her to violate the ASEAN traffic protocol. That is a lame excuse for lack of respect for order and authority. Feeling like a "second class" citizen in your own country does not entitle you to act as a second-rate citizen.
Traffic authorities threaten to slap Lopez with a revocation or suspension of her driver's license.Lucky for her she may only get such penalty. In Singapore, such a daring challenge to authority could mean a thousand dollar fine or three months of jail time.
Last February I wrote about the bad habit of many people who throw their waste paper and plastic wrapper on the road. I wrote that while it is not a big deal to most people, it is a symptom of a lack of consideration for one's community.
Our property-owning class is no exception in the matter of cheap acts. Many tourists probably complain about our lack of sidewalks and our poorly-designed avenues. One of the reasons for this poor urban road design and landscape aesthetics is that many property owners are so jealous of their exclusive ownership of their property over the common interest of the community. They would guard every inch of their property from the setback requirements under the building code.
Molding ourselves to become first-rate, personally responsible citizens is just as important as investing in hotels, resorts and public infrastructure for tourism development. That's one of the keys to sustainable tourism, and the best thing is that we do not have to depend on government to make that happen.
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