Tourism deterrent

Returning to Manila from Taipei the other day, my late evening Cebu Pacific flight turned into a real red-eye flight, delayed by several hours, just like my Taipei-bound flight on Friday.

Someone told me that was what I got for flying on Cebu Pacific. While the carrier has its own terminal at the NAIA, it’s always the last priority, I was told, in using the airport runway.

If this is true, the government should do something to remedy the situation. This is our alternate flag carrier, and it can’t have a reputation for being always late. Singapore Airlines, one of the world’s best, got to the top because it had the full support of its government. I’m not proposing state capitalism for the Philippines, but any service that carries our flag should get some support so it can be equated with quality.

Delays wreak havoc when one has connecting flights on other carriers that have a better track record in keeping schedules. This can be awful particularly for prospective overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) whose travel documents are handled by recruiters, and who don’t know anything about re-booking delayed or canceled flights.

At the web check-in counter when I was flying out on a rainy Friday night, for example, a male OFW staggered toward the counter beside me and handed over his ticket. He had missed his flight out of the NAIA because his departure from a province in the south was delayed, he said, by six hours! He had the stricken look of someone contemplating suicide or, in this age of Oplan Tokhang, homicide.

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My mom and I spent the weekend in Taipei with my brother and his family to celebrate his birthday. We took advantage of a Cebu Pacific promo, which makes it cheaper to fly to Taipei than to many Philippine destinations including Cagayan de Oro and the new seat of power, Davao City.

Budget flights are fine for short hops. You don’t need to eat during the odd hours reserved for no-frills flights, and meals even on business class in the top international carriers mostly suck anyway. Our 7,100 islands should be served by more budget flights to promote tourism and economic activities.

Many expats have complained to me about the steep domestic airfare on regular flights especially to top tourist destinations. Combined with high accommodation costs (plus the inadequacy of hotel capacity), the airfare deters tourism.

An ambassador once told me he had planned to bring his family and friends to Batanes for a brief vacation. He was surprised by the airfare and the price of accommodations in a no-star hotel. Comparing prices, the large group ended up spending the vacation in Thailand’s Chiang Mai highlands instead.

The ambassador is wealthy and wasn’t looking for no-frills flights or cheap hotels. In fact he complained about the lack of high-end accommodations in most of our tourist destinations. But he wanted value for his money.

A no-frills flight should not mean an atrocious delay. An expat from one of Asia’s most advanced economies once told me that five minutes of waiting is a long time for people in his country. They would stage a revolution if flights on their local carrier were constantly delayed by a minimum of an hour.

On Monday morning our return flight finally touched down at the NAIA in perfectly sunny weather. What delayed the flight? No one would tell the passengers. An airport source said compounding the inadequate capacity in the nation’s principal gateway was the breakdown of one of the NAIA instrument landing systems.

If President Duterte promised to kill the lowlifes responsible for the sorry state of the NAIA, the public would probably cheer him on.

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Visiting Taiwan for the first time, I was impressed by its robust tourism. My relatives and I went there mainly for a food trip, and we weren’t disappointed.

Taiwan has turned its distinctive cuisine into a top tourist draw. On Sunday its Night Market was packed, with long lines at stalls selling stinky tofu, barbecued Chinese sausages, oyster omelet, and juice made from white or green ampalaya or bitter gourd, which is touted to be good for liver health and for diabetics.

On Saturday night, despite a reservation, we had to wait an hour to get a table at the world-famous Din Tai Fung to pig out on xiao long bao, those succulent dumplings containing soup.

The next morning at a home-based cooking class where we studied how to make the dumplings, the wonderful teacher told us that xiao long bao tasted different in every country, even if sold by Din Tai Fung branches, because different types of flour and spices are used.

Slight variations in preparation techniques and even the weather also affect taste, she said. Plus Taiwanese pork smells and tastes clean, unlike what’s sold in certain other countries.

So if you want authentic Taiwanese xiao long bao, you have to visit Taiwan. Good pitch for tourism.

Taipei has other tourist attractions, such as Yehliu geopark with its unique rock formations by the sea. The geopark reminded me a bit of the Biri Island rock formations in Northern Samar, except Yehliu is much more developed, with an ocean park and paved paths. A souvenir area does not sell tourist kitsch such as refrigerator magnets and key chains but Taiwanese food products such as meat floss cooked before you, vacuum-packed mini squid and seaweed snacks.

Right within the city there’s a hot spring area like the one in Los Baños. But again the Taiwanese area is more developed for tourism. The public pools were also full last Saturday, while around the area crowds walked around the geothermal park.

Another Taiwanese tourist come-on is the excellent broadband service. Free high-speed wi-fi is available everywhere, even in the highlands where we bought the sweetest camote or sweet potato and barbecued pork sausage and chicken from home stalls.

At the airport as we prepared for departure, we watched with envy as flights that were supposed to leave long after ours departed one after the other, with no announcements of delays except one to Tokyo’s Narita, where bad weather was reported.

We knew that the problem did not lie with Taiwan but with the NAIA. For those who enjoy a visit to the Philippines, a much-delayed flight ruins pleasant memories. And the next time the traveler picks a place to visit, the prospect of a similar experience could send him to Chiang Mai instead.