The Department of Tourism missed its inbound visitor target of 7.7 million last year. Only 5.9 million came. Bali, one island alone, attracted 6.33 million visitors last year.
From January to May this year, the slide in our visitor numbers continued. Tourism numbers from South Korea, China and Taiwan plunged by 19 percent, 32 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively.
So, the tourism bureaucrats belatedly called an assessment forum. And the bureaucrats tried to place the burden of doing something to stop our declining visitor arrivals on the private sector.
While it is true that the private sector has a shared responsibility, the bureaucrats under the present dispensation didn’t consult with them on strategies the way past administrations did.
As Stella Arnaldo, tourism columnist of BusinessMirror, reports it, the DOT named the obstacles the tourism industry faced: strong regional competition and travel costs (neighbors offering cheaper packages and flights); geopolitical tensions; limited air connectivity and capacity; border control concerns in select markets (visa issuance for China, reports of profiling of select markets linked to POGO-related issues) and economic slowdown in source markets for tourists.
But our regional competitor countries are also facing those headwinds. Why can they overcome those challenges and even raise their visitor numbers beyond pre-pandemic levels while we languish in the kangkungan?
Yet, our pitiful visitor numbers are already inflated by including overseas Pinoys. Arnaldo reports that “sluggish arrivals of foreign tourists were cushioned primarily by the 28.5 percent increase in the arrivals of overseas Filipinos to 217,626, year-on-year (YoY).”
That’s partly thanks to the untiring annual efforts of 86-year-old Dading Clemente who organizes Fil-Ams to come and visit several regions of the country. Last I heard, she couldn’t even get an appointment to see the tourism secretary.
No doubt the private sector is actively promoting tourism because their profitability depends on it. Dading, who founded Rajah Tours with her late husband, is still jetting around by herself at her age to bring overseas Pinoys here.
When Megawide was still running the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, they organized or joined selling missions to Japan and South Korea to bring in more visitors. The more visitors flying in on more airline flights means more takeoffs and landings at Mactan to improve the airport’s bottom line.
Hopefully, now that the Aboitiz Group controls Mactan, Bohol-Panglao and Laguindingan airports, they will do what Megawide used to do by organizing and/or joining selling missions abroad. Megawide talked to the airlines and travel agents directly.
Manny Gonzales of Plantation Bay in Mactan also invests in those selling missions. Aside from the Korean and Japanese markets, they also went to Moscow and St. Petersburg a few years ago to talk to key Russian travel specialists and tour operators. The Russian visitor market was big in Bali during their winter season. We could be a good alternative destination too.
Most of the obstacles to meeting our visitor target numbers cited by DOT are within the jurisdiction of the government. Policies on visas, for instance, are something DOT should negotiate with DFA and the Bureau of Immigration.
The last time I talked to Dading, she said there was good interest in the Philippines but “we are behind in infrastructure development resulting in a lack of products to sell. So many core issues are not addressed by the national government, particularly DOT, DOTr and DPWH in implementing their parts in the National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP).”
Another problem is wasting resources on wrong project priorities. Social media influencer Thea Tan reported in a post on X that one of the earliest flagship projects of the Frasco tourism department was the rollout of Tourist Rest Areas (TRAs) around the Philippines, each costing P10 million or more to build.
That sounds like a more expensive version of the pork barrel projects that the old Philippine Tourism Authority used to give congressmen. At the time, the request was to use travel tax money to build toilets in barangays that see no tourists.
These Frasco TRAs are air-conditioned stopovers with toilets, charging stations, info desks, pasalubong stalls and lounges. On the surface, Ms. Tan observed, they looked sleek and promising.
“But here’s the catch: questionable locations; does not align with actual tourist behavior; millions spent, but what’s the measurable impact? High optics, but is the value also high? They look nice, but these TRAs risk becoming expensive, underused monuments to misplaced priorities.
“Tourism boost? No baseline or post-construction data to track impact. They are expensive amenities planted in places that don’t yet have the tourism volume to justify them.
“One of the biggest flaws of the DOT’s TRAs is site selection… Let’s talk about Igtuble, Tubungan, Iloilo. I have been to this specific location.
“This is a quiet agricultural town. We went to Igtuble as a destination, not a pitstop. And in the middle of the mountainous area with nothing else, there’s a full-blown TRA.
“And, unless you own a private vehicle, you’re not getting there. Why? Because no public vans, buses, or jeeps go there.
“And even if you do get there to the uplands, Tubungan Plaza is just 21 minutes away. And that area has the coffee shops, restrooms, 7-Elevens and restaurants. So, what does this fancy structure with restrooms and a charging station add? Is tourism built by constructing isolated buildings?”
The LGUs are supposed to maintain them. But LGUs may not have funds to prioritize these facilities. Eventually, “these TRAs can potentially end up with locked CRs, dark interiors, unmanned info desks, etc. They become dead structures: unlit at night, unstaffed during the day.”
That’s how our scarce resources are wasted by thoughtless bureaucrats with no sense of the common good. It’s all optics… palabas!
Better for TIEZA to invest in fixing the sewage systems of key tourism areas like El Nido.
I wonder if BBM knows what’s really going on at DOT? He should demand measurable results, as in increased number of visitors.
Boo Chanco’s email address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on X @boochanco.