LAST week’s news that the Philippines received 2.67 million tourists from overseas in the first six months of the year is very much welcomed. About one quarter of the arrivals came from South Korea. This is highly gratifying. Americans comprised over half a million arrivals followed by over 100,000 from each of Australia, Japan, and Canada.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) has persisted in its penchant for having a catchy jingle designed to attract visitors.
The new campaign revolves around ‘Love the Philippines.’ Personally, I believe that, like its predecessors, this is not a demonstrably useful way of spending DOT’s budget. This campaign is marketed by the well-established consultancy Doyle, Dane and Bernbach at a reported cost of P49 million. I believe that this money would have been better spent on finding out why overseas tourists choose to come (or not) to the Philippines.
Stability is clearly important. France, which has the largest tourism arrivals of any country, is already suffering from last week’s riots. Hotels in Paris and elsewhere are receiving substantial numbers of cancellations.
There is much focus on the imperfections of contemporary air travel. Cebu Pacific (CEB) has faced up to its problems and hopefully will be successfully implementing a more reliable schedule from now on.
A column in a national broadsheet last weekend did, however, disturb me. It asserted “From 2020 to May 2023, CEB carried close to 30 million passengers. It denied boarding due to overbooking to only 10 passengers or a ratio of 0.03 per 100,000 passengers carried.” Sophistry has no place in CEB’s public relations communications. If we read something which we, from direct experience, cannot believe, then we ask ourselves “why is CEB being so economical with the truth?”
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DOT is aiming for a total of around 4.8 million overseas tourists for this year. This is an achievable target.
Tourism will make a significant contribution to our economy and we look forward to a successful implementation of the 2023-2028 Tourism Plan./PN
