Dismantle tourism department

Honestly, what right does one industry, tourism, have to justify one Cabinet department for itself? Dollar earner? Maybe we should have a Department for Overseas Workers or a Department for Business Process Outsourcing. Both earn a lot more dollars than tourism.

I think the tourism department should be dismantled not only because of that almost P70 million windfall to the brothers of the tourism secretary… nor because the tourism secretary chose to spend P120 million for a carinderia fiesta that, like the PTV4 ad placements, isn’t expected to bring one new tourist to the country.

It should be dismantled because the tourism department has not served its purpose, unable to accomplish its objectives, and a very obvious waste of precious taxpayer money. It needs to go simply because a separate department for just one industry has not worked, nor can it be justified.

 After having just agonized with my income tax return for last year, I feel insulted and outraged that government officials with the power to spend my hard earned money are spending it with utter contempt. I gave the government the proceeds of more than four months of work only for the tourism secretary and her family to treat it like their personal funds.

Believe it or not, DOT also just sent out an Invitation to Bid for the supply of reversible jackets to be given to birthday celebrants of the department. Cost: P1,294,500.

Poor slobs are running out of ideas to spend our money.

By dismantling it, we can save P3.5 billion in its current budget, almost P1 billion increase from the previous year, plus a few billions more under two of its agencies, the Tourism Promotions Board or TPB, and the Tourism Infrastructure Enterprise Zone Authority or TIEZA.  The funds of both agencies are, in reality, giant pork barrel funds feeding congressmen and other politicians to keep them friendly.

Let us go back to history. The tourism department was created on a whim right after martial law was declared. It was essentially so Joe Aspiras could remain in the Cabinet. Being press secretary had become too boring for him.

Up until then, tourism was handled by the Board of Travel and Tourist Industry (BTTI), an agency attached to the Department of Commerce. The late Jose Clemente, who later on founded Rajah Travel and Tours, managed BTTI until it became the Department of Tourism by virtue of a Presidential Decree.

Indeed, before the government bureaucracy was created, tourism was largely promoted and regulated by a private sector organization known as the Philippine Tourism and Travel Association (PTTA). Looking back, I think this is how to do it.

There is no better way of promoting an industry than letting the entrepreneurs with skin exposed to the trade to do their thing. Unfortunately, the private sector leaders in the tourism industry today have been spoiled. They now believe they cannot survive without the feeding trough of the tourism department. This must end.

The private sector should not forever depend on government for promotion budgets. Be like the folks at Plantation Bay who go out on their own to attract potential guests to come and visit. Or be like Megawide/GMR that is spending its own money going around the region to convince airlines and potential tourists to come to Cebu because that’s how their investment in Mactan airport will pay out.

When folks in the semiconductor and the BPO industries go abroad to win job contracts that will earn the country foreign exchange, they spend their own money. Why should it be any different for the tourism industry?

The sister and brothers act is a good illustration of why government cannot be trusted to spend promotion money for good. Temptation is too strong to resist.

I have worked on the client, media, and advertising agency sides of the promotions business. The first consideration in spending media promotions (advertising) budget is target audience. That is the first rule the sister and brothers with the collusion of PTV 4 broke.

PTV 4 is simply the wrong medium. It is local in reach. It is even doubtful it reaches a sizable segment of the local audience at all.

The limited budget we have should be spent on international media like CNN and BBC, or in transit advertising in key world capitals. In our social media age, there are also very cost effective short videos on YouTube and Facebook.  

Indeed, during the agency’s 2018 budget deliberations at the House, Tourism Undersecretary Katherine de Castro said the bulk of the P1-billion lump-sum allocation for promotions would be spent for global media placements, brand development, including strategic placements, and “global media influencers”.

The almost P70 million involved in the sister and brothers act is money down the drain. Indeed, they have placed the President in an awkward position because the stench of wrongdoing is so strong he has to take more action than just ordering an investigation or risk eroding his credibility.

The taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth in the tourism department. Yet the administration is increasing our taxes so more can be wasted the Department of Tourism way.

Streamline the bureaucracy. Dismantle the tourism department. Make the private tourism industry pay for promoting their industry. That’s in line with DOF’s philosophy in TRAIN 2 to limit government support to private business.

If at all, have a bureau under DTI to look after tourism regulations and standards. Maybe TIEZA can be retained, but professionally staffed with strict focus on infrastructure development, not pork barrel projects.

The President, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and Budget Secretary Ben Diokno owe it to the taxpayers to dismantle a bureaucratic unit that’s a very obvious waste of our hard earned tax payments. Otherwise, how can they in conscience raise our taxes that’s now causing so much inflationary pain?

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is b[email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco