Tourism-related industries told to brace for the worst

Although Cebu is holding on to the positive side of tourism growth amid the expected slowdown of global travel performance next year, a tourism advocate however warned some tourism-related sectors to brace for the worst next year.

"The larger Cebu city hotels are already being hit due to poor meetings and conference businesses during the last quarter of this year," said Charles Lim, president of Skal International-Cebu Chapter.

 Lim, who is also an International Councilor in the World Tourism Organization warned that tougher times will hit the hospitality industry catering to certain markets.

"Much as I would like to remain highly optimistic, there are some factors that will not favor some [tourism] sectors in Cebu in the coming months," he said stressing the slowdown of Cebu's traditional Korean and Japanese markets.

Also, he said that the sliding performance of the Meetings, Incentives, Convention and Exhibition (MICE) bookings will also provide an adverse effect to some sectors in the entire tourism industry in Cebu.

He mentioned that Korean students coming to the Philippines to learn English will soon shift to the United States as the US recently included South Korea as a visa free country, thus allowing Koreans to visit the US without a visa.

"In spite of higher costs, the students will now want to flock there. And the US too, needs tourists—perhaps more than ever now because of their recession," explained Lim.

Lim, who also owns a tourism consultancy firm Selrahco Management and Consultancy Services, added that City hotels in Cebu have confirmed that their occupancy rates dropped as much as 15 percent in November this year, compared to previous year's performance.

"The market pie did not grow but the room capacity did, thus creating a distressing scenario," he said. — Ehda M. Dagooc