Not much fun in tourism numbers

A couple of readers wrote to say I had been too kind to Tourism Secretary Mon Jimenez. I was told I had allowed friendship to get in the way of a more accurate assessment of how he had performed.

True, one reader conceded, the lousy transportation infrastructure courtesy of my friends at DOTC had a big impact in Mon J’s failure to get anywhere near his audacious 10 million visitors target. But that’s not all. Mon J, the reader suggested, simply wasn’t as successful as he projects himself to be.

Firstly, I am told, the target is unrealistic. “We had 3.5 million arrivals end of 2010, and we were averaging 10 to 12 percent annual growth. To achieve Mon J’s target of 10 million, we need to grow on average at 25 percent annually. That’s a tall order. Not only do we need more promotional budget. We also need to do something dramatically different. Not even a new campaign like ‘it’s more fun’, will do the trick.

“In contrast, Bertie Lim’s target was 5 million. It’s too low naman. Even if we don’t do anything, we will achieve that. It’s our average growth rate, and it’s our fair share of the Asean market. BTW, Mon J’s final number will be very close to this... maybe at 5.2 to 5.4 million by end of 2016.”

Maybe, my reader suggested, we should have set a simpler goal – to overtake Vietnam in three to four years. That would already mean, the reader explained, we have to grow annually faster than Vietnam. That also means we have to do things radically different.

Interestingly, the reader pointed out, Vietnam overtook us in terms of tourist arrivals at a time when their infrastructure (airport and roads) were really bad, and with a promotional budget much less than ours. We have to understand what Vietnam is doing that is apparently more effective than whatever we have been doing.

Mon J could have done it, I was told. With Dick Gordon’s Tourism Act, the tourism department has received a substantial boost in its promotional budget coming from Pagcor. But it seems, the reader lamented, it did not make a dent in increasing our arrivals.

The reader suggests that we’re not seeing any spike in the numbers because Mon J is not using our promotional budget for maximum impact. How do tourists select a destination? They check the Internet.

Ok, that seems correct. Mon J and I are pre digital. My children who have traveled to more places on their own than I probably will in my lifetime do all their planning and reservations through the Internet. I still prefer going through a travel agent because I want someone I can talk to.

Come to think of it, we see very little DOT-initiated Internet campaigns. Instead, the reader pointed out, it seems we spend most of our money participating in international travel fairs. From time to time we have spot ads in key locations (bus ads in UK, billboards in the US and other places). 

But even this bus advertising, another reader complained, is throwing money to the wind. “I have real issues with the money DOT is spending on bus advertising in London. This is a case of wrong market (what are the chances of convincing an average Briton to fly to the Philippines for holiday when Spain, Italy, Greece, etc., are so much closer? It is the wrong medium (bus?).

“It is also the wrong message (every destination in the Philippines is mentioned on different buses, but there is in fact no message, just mention of various places; and good luck if you think a Londoner walking on the street will remember the words Siargao or Cagayan de Oro).”

I must admit it made me proud to see buses in London and New York with Mon J’s campaign. But then again, I am the wrong market. That was not supposed to be a feel good campaign for Pinoys but for foreigners to visit our country.

Anyway, the other reader thinks it is also wrong for DOT to emphasize going to trade fairs. People at DOT see travel fairs as an opportunity to travel. It’s not in their best interest to reduce participation and shift funds to Internet campaigns.

“Tour operators and property owners, who have tremendous influence over DOT through the Tourism Congress also want to perpetuate this. With a participation fee of only $100, they get a booth in the pavilion that DOT pays for.

“And what do we achieve? The participating operators and property owners get deals in these fairs but hardly in the volumes that would produce spikes.

“Compare that to the few Internet-hyped competitions we participated like the “7 Wonders” where the Underground River of Palawan and Vigan participated. After they won, Puerto Princessa and Vigan could not cope with the spike in arrivals. And DOT was not even the lead in these initiatives. It was the LGU.”

It was suggested that “there are other things we can do, like organize and institutionalize events. Iron Man is a good example. Why can’t we have an annual Manila Marathon? If we can’t have an F1 race like Singapore, why can’t we have a motocross event instead? Or a wakeboarding, surfing, or dragon boat race annually?”

The reader concedes that “infra is important. Imagine if we have international airports direct to Boracay and Bohol years back, how many tourists it would have added to our numbers. What about ports where cruise ships can dock? Again, big numbers.”

One other big reason we struggle to raise our tourism numbers is accommodations. We simply do not have enough decent hotel rooms that would be able to take in the 10 million tourists of Mon J. Worse, the hotel rooms we do have are rather expensive.

Just last week, there were complaints about how hotels jacked up room rates in Cebu by as much as 120 percent for the APEC meetings there later this month.

According to the Cebu SunStar, DFA Undersecretary Laura del Rosario appealed to hotel managers and the Department of Tourism’s (DOT) local office to do something about it, lest Cebu lose its chance to host international meetings in the future.

A deluxe room, for example, was priced at P4,530 last Aug. 5, but the rate increased to P11,000 for a night’s stay during the Apec meeting. Some 3,000 delegates, mostly from the governments of 21 member-economies, will be in Cebu between Aug. 22 and Sept. 23 to attend the meetings.

Del Rosario said that some “frustrated” delegates were turned off by the sudden increase. “They are upset… ‘Please don’t treat us like tourists.’ The delegates are coming here for a meeting that’s very important. Please don’t kill it,” del Rosario said during the briefing for government information officers and media at the Capitol Social Hall. Cebu hoteliers explained that higher rates during the meetings are “market-driven.”

But of course. Scarcity means higher prices. Basic economics. And unless our tourism officials are able to entice more investors to build hotel rooms, our prices for accommodations will always be uncompetitive with hotels in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.

But how can hotel investors be encouraged if the tourism department itself doesn’t seem to know how to handle something as basic as the star rating system?

I just heard from my friend, Emmanuel Gonzalez, a pioneering investor in what I consider a five-star resort, Plantation Bay, in Mactan. Manny reports that they “just got notice that the DOT team rated us 4 stars, and Shangri-La 5 stars.”

As ratings go, Manny feels that under the DOT questionnaire, the difference between 5 points and 3 points (for any given item) is purely subjective. “Meanwhile, qualities that real guests look for, such as larger rooms, larger bathrooms, and separate tubs and showers (just to cite three items among hundreds) earned us no points at all.

“The ‘team’ that came to evaluate us included some Australians (of unknown experience) and a Filipino (of no experience in rating hotels). The DOT rating system, far from promoting clarity and certainty, is obviously just another way in which incompetent public officials can waste money, and get back at those who dared to criticize them.”

How does Manny know he is right and DOT is wrong?

“Well, my source is Expedia. Expedia is a real-world company, with experienced evaluators and real customers to rely on.”

“On Expedia (and by the way, also Bookings.com, agoda.com, and others), we are rated 5 stars. In fact, on Expedia, our guest satisfaction has always been higher than Shangri-La’s, which was one of the points they considered when raising our rating last year from 4.5 to 5 stars. These ratings come from real people, who really visited, and really spent money.”

Oh well…

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco