No battlefield here - My Viewpoint

One newspaper (not The STAR) recently tried to stoke the fires of an allegedly raging battle between Tourism Secretary Gemma Cruz-Araneta and Senator Loren Legarda over the nation's tourism programs. Gemma was not doing enough, Loren is supposed to have said. Senator Legarda, chairperson of the Senate committee on tourism, is also quoted as having "bewailed the lackluster performance of the DOT in projecting the Philippines as a tourist destination."

The putative protagonists didn't bite. Both were on the early morning radio talk show of Korina Sanchez and Ted Failon professing full and sympathetic understanding for each other's position. Secretary Araneta conceded that the poor performance of the Philippines in terms of increases in tourist arrivals was worrisome when compared with the healthy gains posted by our neighbors. On the other hand, Senator Legarda agreed that a large part of the problem had to do with the niggardly resources given by the national government to the Department of Tourism. She denied blasting Ms. Araneta and, instead, acknowledged that the latter was doing what she could with the meager resources she had to work with.

Putting a partisan spin on our tourism problem is really being myopic in the extreme. We should be committed as a nation to a vigorous but environment-friendly tourism program. This is an industry where our country can compete with the best and strongest in this region. We should be concentrating on finding ways of getting the program back on its feet, not looking for people to blame or hang from the rafters.

If I'm not mistaken, the DOT has one of the slimmest budgets in the entire government, smaller even than the Office of the Press Secretary. Theoretically, the DOT augments its income with contributions from the Philippine Tourism Authority, drawn primarily from travel taxes and revenues of the duty free shops. Ms. Araneta, though, points out that PTA contributions have shrunk from about P200 million at the height of the Ramos boom years to a minuscule P20 million or so during the Asian financial crisis. That is, literally, peanuts at a time when substantial investments are needed in programs to promote our country abroad. If we think the successful tourist programs recently undertaken by Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia just dropped on their laps like manna from heaven, then we're dreaming. It took tens of millions of dollars in promotional activities, some devised by expensive international consultants hired to do the job. It took long periods of gestation, planning and actual implementation. In the end, their investments paid off. But that's the way it's done. Tourism is a highly competitive -- some might even say cutthroat -- game. There are a lot of destinations out there fighting tooth and nail over the tourist dollar. This is not a game you win on lofty rhetoric or pure personality alone.

Even if we forget Metro Manila, which we really should, our beautiful beaches, skin-diving meccas and nature spots need to be promoted, and promoted heavily. If we don't have the courage of our convictions to fuel the effort, let's not blame Tourism officials for not being "imaginative" enough. It's not only imagination they need, we gotta show them the money.

The other big problem raised by Secretary Araneta is a more complex one. She says there aren't enough international flights into the country. She cites the conventional wisdom that he who has more flights gets more passengers. This dictum has been proven correct time and again, provided those flights are also competitive in terms of prices, reliability, services in-flight and on the ground, and safety record. Ms. Araneta also bewails (this time, she's doing the real bewailing) the fact that the DOT has no real participation in the aeronautical policy of this country. For instance, the tourism body is no longer represented in the Civil Aeronautic Board which regulates airlines, grants operating authorities, fixes fares and rates, and implements our international air policy.

She's hit this nail right on the head! Here, though, she treads on sensitive political ground. For one thing, our country has not embraced a liberal aviation policy, sometimes called "open-skies," the key to successful tourism performance in many other countries. But open-skies is not universally welcomed as an unqualified success, a point which we need another column to discuss.

The conclusion, it seems, is pretty straightforward. We like engaging in self-pity, envying the success of other countries' tourism programs. We should be doing better than they, we say. We have better attractions, we insist. But the truth is, we don't have a credible, serious, adequately-funded tourism program worth the name.