A brighter future for Philippine tourism?
12th August 2010 by Andrew Matheson, Manila | 1 Comment
I’ve blogged before about the poor performance of Philippine tourism. Despite a lot of natural advantages, the country attracts only a fraction of the tourists that some of its neighbours do.
The Secretary of Tourism in the new government, Alberto Lim, has put forward some good ideas about how to change this. The main thrust is that this government is open for business. It’s very keen to improve the business environment and the opportunities for investment. One way of doing that will be to establish tourism enterprise zones. These will be rather like the current economic zones for other businesses that bring tax and duty concessions, and have one-stop shops for all interactions with government. The new zones are to attract private investment to boost the tourism sector.
Poor infrastructure is a barrier to developing tourism
The new government also sees public-private partnerships as the way to kick-start infrastructure development. Tourism is seen as one of the major focuses for infrastructure improvements, as poor infrastructure has been an important brake on the sector.
I think there could be some opportunities for New Zealand businesses here. Tourism is important to New Zealand. I don’t want to suggest that we’ve got everything right, but the industry has grown to be one of New Zealand’s biggest export industries. The “100% Pure New Zealand” brand is world renowned. New Zealand receives around 2.5 million international visitors each year (this in a country of just over 4 million people), and even in a difficult economic climate the numbers were up 3% on last year.
Success like this isn’t an accident. It needs individual entrepreneurs with creativity and passion for the job, but it needs effort by the industry in coordination with government. There needs to be promotion, research (covering a wide range of subjects), and evaluation.
These are the issues that Secretary Lim and his staff are looking at now. The development of the industry could create opportunities for New Zealand businesses — including investment in tourism enterprises from accommodation to niche service providers, hospitality training, and consultancy services to Philippine tourism operators.
Another opportunity is in standard-setting and accreditation. Secretary Lim is keen to implement industry standards that are on a par with international norms, and to have mandatory accreditation of primary tourism enterprises. New Zealand’s contribution to the GTZ tourism dialogue last year was from Geoff Penrose, chief executive of Qualmark. This New Zealand organisation is a public/private partnership that sets standards for the tourism industry and measures businesses against them. “Helping you to find quality places to stay, things to do, and ways to get there”, as its slogan says. The Philippines is looking for something along those lines.
Chilling out in Boracay
The Philippines has a lot going for it as a tourism destination. Great scenery, with some terrific beaches. A very pleasant climate. The people really are universally welcoming and friendly, and you can easily get by with English.
The government is focussed on adding what’s missing —better physical infrastructure and human resources, more investment in tourism enterprises (that might also increase value for money), and industry standards and accreditation. I hope that New Zealand businesses will be able to find some opportunities in this development.
Great message Andrew. I have now left qualmark and am providing international consulting services with a good response from European and South American countires. There is plenty of scope in the Philippines and when the political climate is ready to asert a standards based approach I would certainly like to apply my skills. My web site worldclasstourism will soon be launched and I will continue to work with GTZ and others in the Philippines to improve their offering.