“Why have we failed so far to draw the kind of tourist numbers our neighbors are attracting and how could this be reversed?”
ALTHOUGH we have some of the best islands and beaches in the world, not to mention our dive sites consistently adjudged as number one, we remain at the tail end in the ASEAN region when it comes to foreign tourist arrivals.
The country suffered a decrease in tourist arrivals for the first quarter of this year with only 1.65 million instead of increasing like our neighbors.
The big question is why have we failed so far to draw the kind of tourist numbers our neighbors are attracting and how could this be reversed?
We have heard all the reasons mentioned before.
Some of these are poor tourism infrastructure, peace and order or safety of foreign tourists, difficulty in traveling internally, costs, poor marketing strategy, and negative perception of the country.
A new one which I just came across recently is geography.
This contends that since the country is supposed to be the farthest, foreign tourists from Europe no longer would like to go any farther unless the Philippines is really in their initial itinerary.
The beaches in Thailand or Vietnam seem to be sufficient for them.
But how come Indonesia, which actually requires farther travel, has been attracting an increasing number of foreign tourists which could not be only due to the island of Bali?.
There must be other reasons why we are failing to increase our tourist arrivals.
This has prompted some of our tourism stakeholders to urge for a “strong catalyst” so the country can at least recover to pre-pandemic arrival levels.
What that strong catalyst is they did not mention but it is true that unless something is done, tourist arrival numbers will continue to be dismal.
DOT projections from now to 2028 therefore will have to be revised downwards.
But if we look at all the problems mentioned, all or most of them are issues which will take time to repair and cannot be solved instantly.
Also, most of us seem to view that when it comes to tourism, it is mainly the responsibility of the DOT which is not the case at all.
Let us take the case of marketing strategy.
The DOT can only go so far in trying to market the country as a tourism destination.
In order for the DOT to succeed, the product it is marketing must be in itself a good product because otherwise no matter how much effort and money is spent, the result we expect will not happen.
It has to be a country effort where the entire government bureaucracy together with the public should all contribute.
Let us first try to improve the image of the product we are selling and then let it speak for itself.
People will find this out for themselves eventually and they will come.
We can start from all our entry points like our airports and ports by making them clean, efficiently and professionally managed and be truly comparable with the best in the world.
Then we must improve our internal transportation system and make it easy for everyone together with our visitors to travel efficiently.
For the DOT, it should focus its attention in seeing to it that our tourism infrastructure like our hotels and resorts are affordable, clean and professionally managed.
Lastly, our visitors must feel safe in our country and that is where our law enforcement agencies come in.
Our police must be perceived as professional, capable and able to do its job.
Only then can we begin to improve our tourism numbers. We have to remember that oftentimes, people go to countries where they have positive impressions and not to places where they have negative perceptions.
It is simply a natural human reaction.
The sad part in all of this is that the country has so much to offer to our visitors.
Not only our more than 7,600 islands, among the most environmentally diverse in the planet, but also our pristine white sandy beaches, dive sites and our rich culture as well.
So, if we want to catch up, let us do the hard work first. Nothing really comes that easy.
