How to create a tourist destination

JUIZHAIGOU-SICHUAN, China — After a day’s journey from Manila that involved three different planes, I was understandably feeling a bit giddy as I stepped out into the rarified air of this fairly new tourist destination in China. So, this is how it feels to be somewhat on top of the world. I know it isn’t quite Mt. Everest, but the airport here is at an altitude of about 10,000 feet and surrounded by even higher mountains in the background. For a lowlander like me, that’s something… this is just about how high Mt. Apo is, the highest mountain back home.

Our hosts are quite used to this bewildered reaction from their guests. They were quick to offer canisters of oxygen, just in case we need a little help to get adjusted to the place. But they also kept on suggesting that it is best that we skip the oxygen canisters and just let our bodies adjust to the new environment. And so we took some deep breaths and headed for the baggage claim area of the fairly new airport terminal.

The airport here is pretty busy for one that serves a sleepy community of about 50,000 natives, mostly Tibetans and Qiangs, since it opened in 2003. I was told that an airliner arrives every hour of the day, sometimes more often… all driven by a robust tourist traffic… domestic tourist traffic. I noticed that even now, they are busy building additions to the terminal building. For a provincial airport in a pretty isolated part of the world, this is a decent terminal building… It would definitely put our Manila Domestic Airport to shame.

This airport is something we should have in Caticlan… tourist driven. I was told that before it opened, the only way up here is by a long and somewhat dangerous 14-hour road travel from Sichuan’s capital city of Chengdu. What they did here is a good example of how to develop a tourist destination from scratch… with nothing but Mother Nature’s beauty at the start. The secret word is INFRASTRUCTURE.

I am glad I accepted the invitation of an old friend to come to Jiuzhaigou. I haven’t seen such breathtaking vistas of natural beauty in a long while… not since that Alaskan cruise my wife and I took some years ago which brought us to a winter wonderland in the mountains along the border of Alaska and Canada. That was breathtaking too in a special kind of way.

Jiuzhaigou is different. The tall mountains, which I viewed from the plateau below, are simply awe-inspiring in an Earth-bound, philosophical sort of way. I am told everything is even more beautifully dramatic in autumn… as the entire scenery transforms into a canvass of multicolored hues that confirms even to an agnostic that the Creator as, first of all, the greatest of artists.

Geographically speaking, Jiuzhaigou is pretty isolated. One would have to be a dedicated adventurer to even consider a visit... before the critical tourism related infrastructure were put in place. It is so isolated that this is the first time in my many travels, including that one to Alaska, that I did not encounter another Filipino outside of my group of journalists. Yet, it must be attracting more tourists today than Boracay.

If our tourism officials want to learn how to create a tourist destination out of the basics from Mother Nature, they should arrange to come here and learn. This is one foreign junket that should be worth their while and pay dividends for the country… assuming they learn and practice what they learn from Jiuzhaigou.

As I said, the secret of tourism in Jiuzhaigou is INFRASTRUCTURE. Our group of journalists stayed in a 1,200-room hotel and convention center in the middle of really nothing but mountains, forested mountains and a lot of hairy yaks (native Tibetan cattle). I was told that everything was the brainchild of a young Chinese entrepreneur, who caused the investment of no less than a billion US dollars not just in the Jiuzhai Paradise Resort and Convention Center, but in another tourism development called Goddess Lake, some 50 kilometers away through a first-class zig zag road that he also built.

The last time I encountered such a brave entrepreneur was shortly after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption when Tony Gonzalez of Mondragon told me he was going to build a championship golf course and a world class tourism facility in an area in Clark that was, at that time, covered with lahar.

I thought he was foolish but Tony Gonzalez delivered on his dream. That the politicians messed things up afterwards is another story… but something relevant to the question of why we don’t have new Tony Gonzalezes now when we need them badly to create value and jobs. (The other person that comes to mind is another Gonzales, Manny Gonzales of Cebu’s Plantation Bay, a continuing success story made from what I initially saw was a useless rocky coastal area.)

So this Jiuzhai Paradise entrepreneur reminded me of Tony Gonzalez, even including his playboy reputation. If I didn’t see the crowd of tourists in the sprawling development, I wouldn’t believe it was possible. I am even sure this is NOT how I want to enjoy the serene natural beauty of Jiuzhaigou but from the business point of view, there is no other way to view the whole thing other than a rousing success.

The Jiuzhai Paradise resort was fully booked – all 1,200 rooms – during the two days I have been here. Because the one-and-a-half hour drive from the airport revealed a sparsely populated locale, seeing a multitude of people that’s more typical of Disneyland upon my arrival at the hotel was a complete surprise. The curious thing is, most of the tourists are domestic… there were only a few foreigners at the complex. I guess it only showed the growing buying power of China’s middle class… given that the cost of a vacation here is far from cheap.

Other than the very impressive airport and road network, the other valuable contribution of government to the development of the tourism industry in Jiuzhaigou is preserving Mother Nature’s beauty and wonders. After all, one does not go to Jiuzhaigou to stay in the convention center but rather, to see and experience Mother Nature at her best. For this to happen, the Chinese government has done a marvelous job of managing the Jiuzhaigou National Park, said to be in the list of UNESCO’s natural heritage sites.

But because some 20 to 25,000 people visit the national park daily, there was little choice but to run the place like Disneyland. I thought there were just too many people for my taste… It is impossible to commune with Nature when bus after bus disgorge tourists on each of the postcard pretty sites – from lakes to water falls. Luckily, the area is so large, there is no way all those people can steal the joy of simply gazing that the forests and the mountains in the horizon as far as the eyes can see.

The other thing that our tourism officials should learn from what they did here can be learned by attending a spectacular cultural show organized by the same people behind Jiuzhai Paradise. The only word that describes it is, spectacular. There must have been at least 200 people in very colorful costumes and a dozen horses in that performance in a new theater that has the latest of technological wonders too.

It is difficult to believe they went to all the trouble for a domestic audience. Then it occurred to me that because the cultural presentation showcased the cultural minorities of China in the region like the Tibetans and the Qiangs, it also supports the cause of cultural understanding, which is important for China. If I were a domestic Chinese tourist who spent his day marveling at Nature’s beauty at the park, the cultural show in the evening is guaranteed to engender national pride.

Of course, we must not forget China has enough numbers to make more than a viable market in tourism, even in an isolated area. A one-to-one comparison with us is not possible. Still, I am impressed with the thought process that brought this tourism haven into reality and the way a private entrepreneur worked in harmony with government to produce a wonderful product. It can be done, pala! But government must work with private sector entrepreneurs and not get in the way or snuff them dead, as what happened in Tony Gonzalez’ Mimosa.

Maybe that means it’s an impossible dream back home… creating a tourism destination. Indeed, creating a flourishing tourism industry requires fresh ideas, action, hard work and infrastructure. It is easier to do meaningless publicity blitzes and directionless junkets that do not add a single new hotel room or a decent airport where it is not only needed but where it counts.

Pardon me

A flat-chested woman was delighted when her fairy-god mother said her chest would increase in size each time a man says, "Pardon" to her. She walked down the sidewalk, accidentally bumped into a man and he said, "Pardon me." Her chest instantly grew an inch and she was ecstatic.

The next day, she bumped into a man in the grocery store, he begged her pardon and another inch was added to her chest. She was in seventh heaven!

She walked into a Chinese restaurant, collided with a waiter who bowed and said, "A thousand pardons for my clumsy behavior."

The next day, the headline in the local newspaper reads: "Chinese waiter crushed to death!"

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]