Recovering

It was a joy to visit Cebu last week after three years of the pandemic. Initially had some problems booking our flight on Cebu Pacific. We didn’t realize you had to specifically reserve even for one piece of luggage. Understandable, because it is a budget airline. But the online booking site should have been more helpful.

It was my first time to see the magic Megawide has done for Mactan Airport’s old Terminal 1 that handles domestic flights. It looked very international, looking better than NAIA 3. The lighting is so much better and so is the way the stores are presented.

Sayang. NAIA could be looking a lot better and operating with better infrastructure. But a nuisance suit was filed against Megawide for daring to present an unsolicited bid to fix NAIA. Now they are talking of letting the private sector help again. Not going to happen even if that nuisance suit was dismissed.

Manny Gonzalez had just returned to the country when Odette (international name: Rai) blew off the roofs of a number of Plantation Bay pavilions. Super Typhoon Odette, was the second costliest typhoon in Philippine history behind Typhoon Haiyan or Yolanda in 2013. Odette reportedly cost an estimated $500 million (P28 billion) in damage. It reportedly caused an estimated P20.16-billion worth of damage to tourism.

Bohol was also devastated by Odette and the folks at Bluewater Panglao, which we visited last year, told us how they suffered and painstakingly brought the business back on line.

At Plantation Bay, the sea surge of Odette flooded the Japanese restaurant and other structures near the sea. Trees were blown down. By the time Odette left the area, the beautiful resort looked like a disaster area.

They had some guests at that time and a couple from Southern Cebu also arrived and they took care of them. The priority was to make sure the power generator works. It was no longer easy to get diesel supply. They had to use the swimming pool water for basic needs… Manny said he taught his staff how to take a bath using just one pail of water and a “tabo.”

What went well for Plantation Bay was its staff and the corporate culture inspired by Manny, which I can only describe as similar to our Kapamilya culture at ABS-CBN. Most of the staff live onsite, so they had 100 workers eager to begin cleaning up the mess the morning after.

It was a one-two punch for the Plantation Bay staff. First it was the pandemic that could have closed down the resort for lack of guests. Then Odette came. But Manny didn’t want to let go of his staff for as long as he could. So, he came up with a new business line, canning kare kare and other popular dishes. The kare kare is Manny’s own recipe and so is the chili con carne.

They had to invest new money to get the proper canning equipment and devise a marketing plan that is so different from selling a resort experience. They got into some supermarkets in Cebu and later expanded to Manila through social media. I am told they are also now selling at Landmark Makati.

The thing with Manny is that he runs Plantation Bay like it is his own child. He lives onsite, manages by going around the compound on his Segway and concocts cocktails for the restaurants’ bar. He runs training programs himself. Manny is the most hands-on CEO I have met. Parang single proprietor.

The rehabilitation of Plantation Bay is still ongoing. But you wouldn’t guess from the number of Korean and other visitors I saw last weekend. Manny said they have a good general sales agent in Seoul who restarted the post pandemic surge of visitors, mostly young couples.

Plantation Bay can speed up rehabilitation if the government helps them with their insurance claim from Odette’s damage. All they got was a small advance and the rest is still being held up. I am sure if the resort was Hyatt or Hilton, the insurance company will pay up because bigness counts.

And that’s the point. Plantation Bay doesn’t have the clout of a resort chain. But neither do most of our resorts. This is why the government, through the tourism department working with the Insurance Commission, should help. This a chance for the IC to show it isn’t a captive of the industry it regulates.

The tourism industry deserves all the help it can get from the government. It’s 12.7 percent of GDP in 2019 and accounted for 5.7 million direct employment. Total revenue for both international and domestic is about P3.7 trillion, according to Jojo Clemente of the Tourism Congress of the Philippines. Our tourism industry is more MSMEs, independent operators who provide employment at the grassroots, and business to local farmers and transport operators.

Look… typhoons are a constant risk, that’s why tourism investors take insurance. The insurance companies know the risk. That’s what risk premiums are about. When disaster strikes, the insurance companies must pay to help their clients get their business back on its feet. It should be a partnership.

Maybe the DOT and the Insurance Commission can come up with a special tourism resort policy to cover for natural calamities like typhoons and earthquakes that are very clear and need no more interpretation. The worst thing is for typhoon insurance claims to end up in court because that will take years to resolve. Fixing the damage is an urgent need.

The current Tourism Secretary is not only a lawyer, but also a Cebuana, so she is in the best position to help resorts like Plantation Bay with their insurance claim problems.

There isn’t much the Tourism department can really do to help the industry except for things like these. During the pandemic, then Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo Puyat interceded with IATF to prioritize vaccination of tourism workers so the industry could get up on its feet faster.

The tourism industry is recovering. But the government should help the usually capital-starved independent resort operators devastated by killer typhoons. Using her clout as a Cabinet member in helping facilitate their insurance claims is how to be truly useful.

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