“We keep blaming our tourism secretaries, and surely there is reason to not be impressed by the efforts of the current placeholder”
MY FAMILY and I just came back from an 8-day visit to Japan, not the usual Tokyo and Osaka with its nearby tourist destinations like Kyoto and Lake Hakone, or even Hokaido, but the less travelled Nagano and Takayama in the central and mountainous part of Honshu Island.
Taking advantage of a PAL 50 percent discount on Mabuhay Miles, I was able to treat the brood with free tickets and accommodations, there to celebrate a granddaughter’s third birthday and first snowfall experience.
The four-star hotels where we stayed were not only quite comfortable and conveniently located but at prices that would shame similar hotels in NCR or our major tourist destinations.
Food which in Japan is always excellent, whether in a small mom-and-pop eatery or a fine dining restaurant, is more reasonably priced than in BGC or Makati.
Tourism is such a low hanging fruit for the Philippine economy, and yet, we have not reached even a significant fraction of the number of arrivals of our ASEAN neighbors.
I will no longer enumerate the visitor arrival numbers from Thailand, Malaysia, even tiny Singapore.
I would not want to further compare our tourist numbers with recently war-torn Vietnam, nor Bali which is almost singlehandedly the go-to in Indonesia.
Why, even Cambodia, whose Angkor Wat in Siem Reap is the sole attraction, has higher visitor arrivals.
Many news items have given our readers those depressing numbers.
Our economy is propped up by OFWs and BPOs.
Agriculture is so bad we need to import even our basic food necessities.
Manufacturing is hampered by the lack of an industrial base, so that our industries involve mostly food processing for local consumption and if exported, it is to a very limited market abroad.
FDIs have shunned our shores for so many reasons we have long been citing in this space.
Tourism should be able to fill in the gap meanwhile.
We keep blaming our tourism secretaries, and surely there is reason to not be impressed by the efforts of the current placeholder.
There are dozens of reasons why our tourism industry is in the doldrums, including the lousy state of our relations with what is arguably the biggest potential market which is China.
I was in Da Nang and Hoi An last year, a place which 15 years ago was so underdeveloped even if it had a long stretch of a white sand beach, though not as white as Boracay’s or even Bohol’s.
The improvements were awesome in such a short time, and a beachfront five-star hotel where I stayed was only $65 per night, breakfast buffet included. Can any hotel in the country beat that?
That’s less than 4,000 pesos per night, while a Mactan or Boracay hotel with similar quality would go for no lower than 15,000 pesos per night, even much, much higher.
Their world-class golf courses are very reasonably priced.
A major man-made attraction, Ba Na hills with its landmark walking bridge, attracts thousands of visitors each day.
And Hoi An is a one-stop cultural wonder that our Intramuros could rival, if we only get our acts together.
Let me just cite a recent example of how even our departments which impact most on visitor convenience cannot even coordinate their policies properly.
The Department of Transportation, in its effort to decongest the NAIA, issued an advisory to domestic carriers to use Clark International Airport for turbo-prop aircraft.
While there is merit to this policy, considering how the NAIA complex has only one runway that can be used by big jets, the Department of Tourism is worried this will make connecting travel to El Nido, Boracay, Siargao, Batanes and other destinations serviced by turboprops not only more expensive, but quite inconvenient for tourists.
A simple but perhaps stupid question: do the secretaries of these two departments talk to each other?
Tour operators are up in arms; they were never consulted. DoT says they “pushed” the DoTr (likely through a letter), since March of 2025, but they were apparently ignored.
Then again, the DoT secretary sits in the Civil Aeronautics Board, and as such, had every right to participate actively in the Manila Slot Coordinating Committee which as early as 2024 was planning the decongestion policy.
Now DoT points the finger at DoTr, just when the policy has been concretized.
Tourism should be a whole-of-nation concern, from ensuring safety, peace and order, accessibility, affordability, environmental protection, cleanliness and sanitation, practically everything.
See why tourism is an unreachable low hanging fruit for our 7,600 islands?
