D.I.Y tourism promotions

If no one will do it, then do it yourself. If you can’t do it yourself, find some one to team up with in order to get things done. And if someone is already doing the job, make sure you are part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Last week, I was invited to a tourism promotion event that was a three-way effort among the Marco Polo Hotel Ortigas – Cebu and Davao that hosted “Business Matters” an intimate gathering that was dedicated solely to promoting and sharing the efforts of the Department of Tourism with members of the media. Instead of waiting for government to ask or take the initiative, or hiring some PR organizer to stage the event, the general managers of the three Marco Polo Hotels met up and hosted a fusion Filipino lunch for the media and DOT officials just so people could catch up on the latest developments and ideas in Philippine Tourism. I liked the idea because it’s not everyday you find a corporate group making an effort to help government instead of demanding from government.

Even before guests got seated, we were already exchanging views with Undersecretary Bong Bengzon casually pointing out like many other government officials do, that there are so many good news and developments in Tourism but very little is said or written about it. I countered that it would help if the DOT spearheaded the forming of a group of “talking heads,” representatives and owners of hotels, resorts etc. and organizing a regular “meet and feast” or business lunches while talking about “Business Matters.” The meet-ups can be done many times over, at different venues and for different levels of promotion and communications with media.

Many sectors or industry have made the mistake on focusing only on “Specialist” media and end up excluding themselves from mainstream media with the mistaken notion that being exclusive is target specific to their market. Usec Bengzon nodded with approval and before the day was over, the three GMs of the Marco Polo hotels committed to increase their media engagements and personal contacts.

Frank Reichenback – GM of Marco Polo/Ortigas who gave the welcome remarks and introduction of Usec Bong Bengzon stressed that the Philippines remains popular to travelers even though there have been some “question marks” that can be solved by talking about it. He also pointed out that having three hotels on each major island (Luzon – Visayas – Mindanao) softened the impact of the series of unfortunate incidents in Mindanao because travelers and guests often shift or are directed to the two other hotels of Marco Polo.

During the short presentations, Usec Bong Bengzon stressed on a point that many Filipinos especially those in media and politics tend to ignore, overlook or over simplify. Critics of the DOT’s statistics for tourist arrivals constantly harp on low tourist arrivals based solely on comparison with the statistics of other countries in the region instead of year on year or performance history of the country alone.

This is necessary because of the unique “NEGATIVE” feature of the Philippines: 90 percent of tourists coming to the Philippine have to FLY into the Philippines, we are only just beginning to get tourists coming from cruise ships and they tend to dock outside of Metro Manila ports. Most European flights land on the Southeast Asian mainland or Hong Kong. The Philippines is much further and has lost most of the direct flights we used to get because of the idiotic taxes we levied on airlines and then removed too late in the game. In spite of all that, Tourism arrivals have been optimistic. Perhaps all stakeholders ought to hold a summit on how to bring back the direct flights to Manila via incentives etc. Bring back the planes that carry the tourists!

A somewhat unexpected topic of conversation touched on the Philippines having two agencies that split aviation concerns between commerce and technical requirements that make it twice as long to get things done. Just like the LTO and the LTFRB for land, we have the CAAP and the CAB for air. Usec Bengzon cited other destinations/countries where there is only one Civil Aviation Authority that monitors, regulate, improves and upgrades airline operations, airport design and construction as well as management of aviation and airports. The participants were one in the suggestion that the Executive department / Malacañang or DOTr to merge the CAAP and CAB into one office so that stakeholders don’t have to go through two agencies.

Participants also agreed that with the growing markets for LCC or Low Cost Carriers it is now necessary for the DOTr to set up Secondary independent regional – provincial Aviation authorities instead of just one national body overseeing the entire country. This would empower and enhance Local government participation in developing their respective provincial or regional aviation industry and radically improve the quality of aviation and airport management particularly in secondary markets such as Davao, Caticlan, Panglao and GenSan. It would also cater to specific needs of LCCs that operate outside Metro Manila such as Air Asia and the likes.

One example given by Bengzon was the Cebu-Mactan International Airport, which is one of the best example of a successful PPP project of the government. If major or fast growing destinations were allowed to manage their own affairs, things could get done faster and more specific to the needs of the local airports. It is also possible that by doing this, small airports could stay open and be spared the cost cutting measures of poorly funded national agencies resulting in the death of local tourism. Creating independent aviation authorities for secondary markets will also be aligned for the future when Federalism takes root and becomes the way of life in the Philippines.

I would have to do a 3-part series on the rest of the topics but suffice it to say that the initial attempt of the Marco Polo including Brian Conelly – GM Marco Polo Plaza Cebu – Dottie Wurgler-Cronin – GM Marco Polo Davao as well as the Directors for sales & Marketing Pearl Peralta-Maclang/DVo, Marita Marcos- MNL & Lara Constantino – Scarrow – Cebu was so effective and informative that it deserves a lot of praise!

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