BY NEIL HONEYMAN
SEASONAL affective disorder (SAD) is depression associated with winter and is thought to be caused by a lack of light. Many people living in northern climes experience this. It is compounded by cold weather. A holiday to a sunny country seems to alleviate the symptoms. Hence the burgeoning tourism industry.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) has focused on advertising. I believe more attention should be paid to the product. The closure of Boracay has resulted in the development of other destinations such as Mactan, Siargao, Palawan, Panay, and Negros.
Airlines, particularly Cebu Pacific, have done much to engender growth. The potential is tremendous. Approximately 100 million Chinese venture abroad every year but only around one million come to the Philippines.
Autocratic leadership can be good for tourism. In the 1950s, General Franco did much to cause Spain to be an attractive destination for overseas visitors. He did this by setting up a rigorous rating system for hotels so that tourists paid a fair price for accommodation.
Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew pressured government officials into ensuring that arrival procedures were speedy. He insisted that it should take a passenger no more than 30 minutes from the time he landed at Changi Airport to the time he completed all immigration procedures. We should do the same.
New DOT secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat will preside over steady growth. The government is targeting a total of 7.4 million tourist arrivals by the end of 2018. This compares with six million in 2016. The employment implications are significant. Around 2.2 million Filipinos are currently employed in the tourism industry. This should rise to almost three million by 2022 when an achievable target of 10 million visitors should arrive.
The emphasis on infrastructure is welcome. If a 10 percent annual growth rate of visitors is to be attained, then facilities, especially airports, need to be expanded. Progress has been slow, however. During President Aquino’s time both Bacolod-Silay and Iloilo airports came under the scrutiny of the public-private partnership scheme (PPP). Major investments (P20 billion for Bacolod P30 billion for Iloilo) did not materialize, due possibly to the private sector being subjected to irksome constraints from the government. We need a regime which can facilitate major tourism- oriented projects. DOT can do much to establish priorities.
One of these priorities is to increase the number and capacity of provincial airports. Tourists need non-stop flights from their point of origin to their destination. They do not want to spend their holidays languishing in airport lounges waiting for connecting flights./PN
