Pacquiao should be a tourism envoy, not a politician!

Business has only two functions: marketing and innovation. — Czech novelist Milan Kundera

For the Philippine tourism industry to flourish, we need to redouble efforts and investments in marketing, innovation and infrastructure. Last May 5, this writer and Tourism Secretary Ace Durano were invited to be guest speakers at the general membership dinner meeting of the Manila Jaycees at the Manila Yacht Club. The topic was “Marketing the Philippines.” 

Since Durano had to accompany the country’s No. 1 tourist, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to the country’s surfing capital of Siargao in northern Mindanao, Tourism Undersecretary Cynthia L. Carrion delivered the speech in his stead and she gave a very good presentation on the Department of Tourism’s various projects. 

Just before my turn to speak came, Carrion said that she always enjoy reading my columns in the Philippine STAR, though I “often make fun of the President,” and she added that President GMA had mentioned that I’m against her.

President GMA was my former Ateneo economics professor. She was a very good teacher, but I explained that it is my belief that we in the media shouldn’t be cheerleaders for those in power. I believe it is our duty in media to be critical of the powerful in a reasonable way in order to help safeguard the public interest and even take up the cudgels for the powerless.

Even during the presidencies of Joseph Estrada, Fidel Ramos and even Cory Aqunino, this writer was consistently critical based on the issues. I remain critical of President GMA’s ethics, but I said in my speech that tourism is one of the solid achievements of her administration, including her appointment of Secretary Ace Durano.

So how can we better market the Philippines as a tourism destination?

• Asia’s medical tourism center. Since in May we celebrate Mother’s Day, I wish to point out my good fortune during a recent dinner where I was seated beside the famous ob-gyn of the stars Dr. Greg Pastorfide, whose clientele include Sharon Cuneta Pangilinan, the Barretto sisters (Gretchen, Claudine, and Marjorie), Charlene Gonzales, Vivian Velez, Angeli Valenciano, Jessica Rodriguez-Bunevacz, etc. 

Apart from being a topnotch ob-gyn doctor, Dr. Pastorfide explained to me he’s nowadays busy with helping infertile couples through in vitro fertilization (IVF) or the process of fertilizing a woman’s egg cell with sperm cells outside the womb. He cited actress Brooke Shields and singer Celine Dion as among international celebrities who have successfully undergone IVF. In the Philippines, IVF costs range from P300,000 to P700,000, which is cheaper than in most of East Asia, and much cheaper than the West. I suggest the Department of Tourism (DOT) can promote this and other specialized medical services as part of Philippine tourism attractions. Dr. Greg Pastorfide promised to grant this writer a future interview on this topic.

Other areas of medical tourism potential include spas, cosmetic surgeries and beauty centers, heart surgeries at Philippine Heart Center and other procedures, due to our lower costs, our English-language fluency and world-class nurses.

• Dental tourism. I added that we should promote dental tourism. In my October to December 2008 tours of central and eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey and Egypt, I discovered that the beautiful city of Budapest has an additional tourist draw for Western Europe — it has become popular for dental tourism due to its lower costs and good dental services. Dr. Joseph Dy Lim, one of the Philippines’ topnotch dentists, once invited me to his alma mater, University of the East (UE), where he teaches and said the Philippines has world-class dentists. In fact, he pointed out foreign students from East Asia to the Middle East are studying dentistry at UE.

• Manny Pacquiao and Charice as Tourism envoys. This is no joke. I urge President GMA to use her close ties to boxing champ Manny Pacquiao to draft him as a Tourism envoy for the Philippines, dispatching him in DOT promotion trips to Las Vegas, New York, Toronto or London, instead of letting him to sink into the depths of hell as a traditional politico in the 2010 polls. 

Wouldn’t it have been great if the President or the DOT had coached PacMan beforehand, so that upon winning in his last bout, he could have told the world media — in good and rehearsed English, please — “Thanks for all your support. I invite all of you to visit the beautiful and peaceful islands of my country, the Philippines. We have the best beaches in the world!”

Another new international celebrity is the young singer Charice, who told me that David Foster and Warner Music are releasing her first album this month. She’s a favorite of America’s mega-famous TV host Oprah Winfrey. Why doesn’t the President or the DOT gift her with a house in exchange for her to plug, during Hollywood TV interviews or concerts in the West, the wonders of her homeland by saying, “I dedicate this next song to my country, the tropical paradise of the Philippines, which you should all visit. We have the most beautiful islands and beaches in the world!”

• Peace and order concerns. Up to this day, Western and other international perceptions of the Philippines are still negative due to past kidnap-for-ransom crimes allegedly perpetrated by men in uniform or scalawags led by nefarious sinister masterminds, or due to the Abu Sayyaf bandit group’s crimes faraway in Sulu or Basilan, etc. We must address these peace and order concerns decisively by rooting out corruption in the police and military hierarchies; among our politicos, we must increase pay and upgrade professionalism of armed personnel as well as other reforms. Government should use iron-fist decisiveness in this. 

• Plan the future of tourism destinations. I recently visited Baguio City during Holy Week with a real estate client to see their family’s various landholdings and I was disappointed by the blight of urban chaos in the once-beautiful and pristine city of my childhood vacation memories. What happened? Was it lack of long-range planning or just shocking failure of governance? 

The national government should ensure that strict zoning regulations, aesthetics, urban planning and sustainability be implemented in such tourism hotspots as Boracay, Palawan, Anilao, Puerto Galera, Bohol and other places. Government should also intervene to stop or discourage negative real estate speculation in tourism hotpots that can mess up those areas for true resort operators and authentic tourism investors or entrepreneurs.

• Infrastructure development. Boracay Mandarin Island Hotel bosses Robert Po and daughter Christine Po recently told this writer that Boracay needs additional flights to increase tourist arrivals, and they are hopeful that President GMA’s P2 billion-plus airport construction project in Caticlan — just across the waters from Boracay isle — will be completed soonest. 

Neither Bali in Indonesia nor Phuket in Thailand have better white-sand beaches than Boracay, but they have international airports for direct Europe and East Asia flights for the convenience of tourists; therefore they’re more world-famous. In Boracay, tourists have to stay in Manila, then fly to Kalibo in Aklan, then take a two-hour van or jeepney ride to Caticlan, then cross the water to Boracay. Even the shortest route of Manila to Caticlan is not as good as direct international flights from Shanghai, Hong Kong, the US or others to Caticlan. 

Newer and more modern infrastructure projects — whether airports, mass transit systems, rails, highways, provincial roads and better seaports (for tourist cruise ships which as of now do not yet include the Philippines) — should be developed nationwide, to encourage a greater influx of tourists to come. As the line in Kevin Costner’s 1989 movie Field of Dreams repeatedly said: “Build it and they will come.”

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