Marketing

FRIBOURG — The first time I laid eyes on the Swiss Alps I was on a plane. Breakfast was being served near the end of the flight and suddenly snow-capped mountains seemed to be kissing the aircraft.

It was an awesome sight to start the day, especially for people from the tropics. Natives of the Alpine regions, on the other hand, would probably be more impressed with the beaches of Boracay, the diving sites of Palawan and the terraced rice paddies of the Cordilleras.  

Such are the ways of people. We tend to look for novelty and take many things in our natural environment for granted. This is something Filipinos must overcome if we want to give tourism a big boost. There are so many unique attractions and lovely places full of history in our country. What we lack is marketing.

Today I am in Fribourg, capital of the Swiss canton of the same name. It is a community of less than 40,000 people, where the autumn temperature can drop below zero and the Alpine wind chill is so high I fear my nose will fall off.

The Old City sits on a hill that sprawls along both sides of the Saane River. It is as quaintly picturesque as only a place founded in the 12th century can be, where ancient structures have been preserved.

Of particular interest to many Filipinos would be the presence of centuries-old Catholic churches and monasteries here, including those of the Franciscans, Augustinians, Ursulines, Capuchins and the Jesuits. Freibourg (from two German words meaning free fort) was a center of the Counter-Reformation.

The Jesuits, who propounded the concept of an objective press, opened the College of St. Michael in the 16th Century, which later evolved into the University of Fribourg.

Looking around the churches and monasteries, I can’t help remembering our old churches, starting with San Agustin in Intramuros, of which the original structure was built by Spanish colonizers from 1586 to 1606.

Though the San Agustin church façade has been renovated several times and may now be unimpressive in its relative modernity, the original ornate interior has survived, including the 19th century paintings on the vaulted ceiling by two Italians named Alberoni and Dibella. The church is also the burial ground of the Spanish “founder” of Manila, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi.

Other churches in the Philippines have less impressive interiors, but many of them, from Vigan to the southern tip of Mindanao, have equally interesting histories dating back several centuries. The ancient bamboo organ in Las Piñas has an ethereal sound, and the church that is home to the organ is beautiful particularly during the Christmas season.

Unfortunately for us, there are many Filipinos who equate old with ugly. They see a crumbling, centuries-old church and want to tear down the entire thing and replace it with a new structure, or else conceal its age with cheap paint used for sprucing up tombs for All Saints’ Day.

Other countries treasure those histories and do not tire of retelling them to visitors. Churches are major tourist destinations in Europe. Why can’t those in our country be the same?

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Tourist attractions need not be as extensive as China’s Great Wall, as historical as Rome’s Colosseum or as mysterious as the Pyramids of Egypt. Even small, man-made creations can draw visitors if these are marketed properly.

During my recent trip to Brussels I went to the medieval Grand-Place, possibly Europe’s most ornate city square, where the Gothic town hall is located. In one of the ancient restaurants and cafes Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels reportedly wrote the Communist Manifesto.

Among the top attractions in the area is a fountain streaming out of a two-foot-tall statue of a peeing boy, the Mannekin Pis. Tourists also rub the arm of the reclining statue of a local hero, Everard t’Serclaes, for luck.

Don’t we do the same with our religious icons, particularly the statue of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo?

Belgium, it must be noted, was the source of prefabricated steel structures that were used to build the 19th-century neo-Gothic minor basilica of San Sebastian that still sits in the school compound in Manila. The basilica is reputed to be the only church in the world built of prefabricated steel, by Belgian engineers. This history is little known to many Filipinos.

Size does not matter when it comes to tourist attractions. It’s amazing how a statue as small as the Mannekin Pis can draw so much tourist interest. In Copenhagen, Denmark, the renowned statue of the Little Mermaid may also strike a first-time visitor as… well, too small for its mystique. Yet the statue attracts an average of a million tourists a year.

We have mermaid stories across our archipelago, most of them presumably based on drunken sightings of sea cows or dugong. We have turned the stories into B-movie plots and serialized stories in illustrated komiks. But we have not turned anything into a tourist attraction.

In other countries, even bridges, cemeteries and haunted houses are turned into tourist destinations. Voodoo, witches and warlocks are big business in New Orleans, where guided tours advise visitors to watch out for ghost sightings on old mirrors.

We have yet to turn our slew of ghost stories into money-making tourist entertainment.

Our tourism industry should touch base with those tasked with preserving our national heritage, and explore areas of mutual benefit.