To fulfill the dream of making 2008 an “exciting year” for the province’s tourism industry, stakeholders launched this year several initiatives to sustain the sector’s attractiveness to both the foreign and domestic travelers, while the rest of the world faces economic difficulties.
Cebu tourism prime movers started to think of “out-of-the-box” concepts to keep the industry going. Capitalizing on adventure tourism, the industry was able to attract sophisticated tourists, who normally preferred the comfort of five-star resort in a tropical environment with exotic activities that added spice to the tourism trade.
Both local government units (LGUs) and private sector in Cebu started to bank on the untapped adventure tourism potential maximizing on the province's alluring nature-based sites.
Aside from pro-activeness of the LGUs to promote their respective town's attractions, Cebuano capitalists also invested to provide adventure-related facilities, such as the launching of Island's Banca Cruises and JetScape—an inter-island jet-ski tour service.
Cebuano tourism chief Joseph Ace Durano was indeed effective in convincing local players to maximize the potential of adventure tourism in Cebu, including the promotion of Cebu as a "wedding destination" for Japanese couples.
These initiatives, among others have sustained the radiance of Cebu as a tourism hub in the Philippines, although most travel plans during the year were postponed due to the US recession.
DOT-7 regional director Patria Aurora Roa also told tourism stakeholders early this year, to promote Cebu as a pilgrimage destination not only during the Lenten season, but throughout the whole year.
Durano said the active stance of Cebu to tap the adventure tourism component provides another revenue stream for LGU's and become business opportunities for capitalists, as huge fun-seeker tourists right now are demanding for more adventure-type of activities in the Philippines.
In the United States alone, adventure tourism is a US$450 million industry. The Philippines is seen to generate more as it is blessed with ample sites that can be developed for this type of activity to generate good tourism revenue, while providing local residents, especially rural people to earn from tourism revenues.
Cebu, for instance, according to Durano has not yet maximized its potential in providing adventure or nature-based tourism activities, describing it as "still in a very small scale", unlike other places in the Philippines, specifically Palawan.
Durano urged LGUs in Cebu and private sector players to start capitalizing on this avenue, as every town in the province could develop its own "adventure tourism" attraction, may it be trekking, bird watching, island hopping, and caving, among others.
"This is not a capital intensive investment. Part of the adventure is to preserve the authenticity of the place, and its culture. Thus, there is a need for LGUs and private sector to partner in this area," Durano said in an interview over the weekend.
Cebu, which has gained its prestige as the center for tourism in the Philippines, should immediately take advantage of this emerging tourism revenue stream for tourism, Durano said.
The secretary said that there are a lot of activities that will be developed into "adventure tourism" attraction from southern to northern parts of the province, including the West.
Durano mentioned that the Toledo City area could develop a lot of adventure tourism activities, the town of Alegria also should develop the caving and bird watching adventures, among other activities.
Since adventure tourism needs an active participation from the LGUs, Durano said DOT will help LGUs to organize its community in developing several activities which are geared towards adventure tourism, such as equipping the local residents and community in running such service.
Durano emphasized that part of the adventure is to preserve the authenticity of the service, and activity itself, like a local resident should be in the front line, and speaking non-straight English with a very local accent is already a good presentation.
Although during the middle of 2008, Cebu's has seen the slide of Korean arrivals, this has not affected the province's tourism vitality, Durano said.
Emerging markets such as Indians, Chinese, Russians, among others have continued to strengthen Cebu's tourism trade within the year, making tourism as one of the economic engines of Cebu in 2008.
Because of this development, Durano said Cebu has grabbed the attention of international and local airline companies to start up direct flight services, or chartered flights.
In fact, Philippine Airlines (PAL) re-opened its Cebu-Osaka flight this year, with its confidence that Cebu has started to regain its attractiveness to the Japanese market. The flag carrier also announced this year its plan to open up more direct flights from Cebu to other Asian destinations like Singapore.
This year, Cebu has also seen the importance of domestic travelers as saviors against the weakening interest among foreign travelers.
"The domestic market has kept the [tourism] industry afloat," said Department of Tourism (DOT) secretary Joseph Ace Durano.
Durano expressed concerns on the drop of Korean arrivals to Cebu, and Central Visayas, however he is optimistic that resiliency of the local market can sustain the active tourism industry in the Cebu, or in the Philippines in general.
In fact, record showed that domestic travelers to Cebu jumped to 8.43 percent, totaling 479,307 from January to June this year, according to data from DoT regional office here..
"Don't just rely too much on the Korean market. There are other emerging markets that you can capitalize," he advised tourism stakeholders here as stakeholders were alarmed of the Korean arrival decline.
Durano said that Koreans, who top the list of visitors to the Philippines, have put off travel plans in reaction to the depreciation of the Won currency and the financial crisis in the United States.
In Korea, record of outbound travelers went down by 5.5 percent, not just going to the Philippines, but anywhere in the world.
The decline of Korean arrivals to the Philippines should not be a cause of alarm, as the entire market now, all over the world, is adopting postponement of travel plans, especially from the United States, and Korea is not exempted.
DoT 7 records confirmed Korean arrivals to Cebu registered 103,139 visitors that plunged 10.44 percent compared to the first half of last year, which was at 115,161.
To help cushion the decrease in Korean arrivals, while at the same time lure in new market tourists like the Europeans and the resurging Japanese visitors, Durano urged tourism players to continue developing innovative tour packages.
Activating attractive travel packages to the domestic market can aid the temporary decline of international tourists' arrivals, especially from Korea, Durano said.
Part of the innovative concepts is the promotion of Cebu as "Wedding Destination" in Asia. This was announced by Durano in the middle of 2008.
Durano announced that while his department is pushing the Philippines as premier "Wedding Destination" in Asia, Cebu has been made the center of this campaign.
Durano mentioned that facilities of five-star resorts for garden wedding ceremonies and reception, such as in Shangri-La’s Mactan Island Resort, Hilton Cebu Resort and Spa, and Plantation Bay Resort and Spa.
City-based hotels like Marco Polo Cebu, Waterfront Cebu City Hotels and Casino, among others also provide facilities for garden wedding ceremonies for both local and foreign couples.
According to Durano the Philippines is closely working with the Japanese Association of Travel Agents (JATA) to push this new campaign.
He said Cebu could take advantage of this attraction, and wedding coordinators could also find good opportunities in partnership with travel operators and resorts here.
While most Japanese are Buddhist in religion, a growing number of especially the young generation are seeking adventures in their wedding memories, and holding ceremonies outside of their country is found to be an exciting adventure for Japanese lovers.
Although, wedding ceremonies here is done in a Christian or Catholic (religion way), Durano said Japanese lovers' are attracted to the "ceremony" itself, regardless of the religion.
Shangri-La Mactan has built a wedding chapel, called "Ocean Pavilion" primarily to cater the increasing number of foreign and local guests, holding their wedding ceremonies in the Resort.
Even, Plantation Bay Resort and Spa hosted an underwater wedding ceremony last year.
As this campaign is expected to also open another revenue stream for the wedding planning industry in Cebu, players are seeing hitches when it comes to new rules and regulations set by the Catholic Church on wedding ceremonies.
Meanwhile, during the International Tourism Congress, held in June of 2008, stakeholders in Cebu agreed to help curb the alarming brain-drain problem in the tourism sector.
"We should not hold our manpower. If they wish to go out let them go [abroad]. It's nice [for them] to have global perspective because one day they will go back and work here," said Roa, commenting on the issue of fast turn-over of tourism sector manpower that are pirated to overseas' hotels, resorts, cruises, and restaurants.
The Philippines' tourism industry which is considered as one of the biggest revenue earners for the country, should work harder in sustaining or achieving the world-class service standard, and refuse to believe that the industry is largely served by what they call "leftover" skills.
Stakeholders were convinced that "constant training" is the name of the game for the industry right now, in fighting brain-drain phenomenon. It does not matter anymore if local hotels, resorts, are now being used as "schools" or stepping stones to get employment abroad.
Big players in the tourism sector, such as five-star resort Plantation Bay reported that it is investing hugely in the recruitment and training, as the speed of manpower turnover is at all time high.
"Regrettably, we only wish them well. What we do is to continuously spend on, hiring and training new people," said Plantation Bay president Manuel Gonzalez.
Plantation Bay, which maintains a total of 450 people has to strengthen human resource management team, to sustain the availability of world-class accommodation skills, serving the sophisticated tourists from all over the world.
Just like any other player in tourism, as well as in medical sector, Gonzalez said Plantation Bay is losing people to employment offered by international companies that operates cruises, resorts, and hotels.
National Association of Independent Travel Agencies (Naitas) chairman emeritus Robert Lim Joseph for his part said that brain-drain in the tourism sector is inevitable, local employers can not compete with the high monthly take-home pay offered by overseas companies.
In trying to arrest this problem, Joseph said Naitas, in cooperation with other tourism industry organizations are calling the attention of Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) to improve the school's curriculum and provide industry players with highly-skilled accommodation professionals, so that players will not have to spend more in training.
"We want people to come and work, but we have to give them [world-class] skills," Joseph said.
Currently, only seven percent of the total graduates in hotel-restaurant management (HRM), and other tourism service related courses, is absorbed by the industry. This has to be improved in order for the industry to sustain its growth and take advantage of the tourism advantage of the Philippines, Joseph said.
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