Once more on that tourism dev't plan

I got a lot of responses to the article we wrote last Saturday about the rehash of the Tourism Development Plans under Department of Tourism (DoT) Secretary Albert Lim. One response came from a good friend who called me to explain what Sec. Lim has been doing and that the studies done by Indra are not a rehash of the old one. I asked that friend to email me her response so I could put that letter in this column, which was supposed to come out last Wednesday. But as of press time, I got no such email from her.

Another friend and a former neighbor of mine also texted me about Indra and told me that they had a company that was big in European tourism, but then I also did not get any follow up on this via email. Other friends texted me to ask whether my information was given to me by Mr. Robert “Bobby” Lim Joseph. But I told them that in all fairness to Mr. Joseph, there are just too many people in the Tourism industry who are not happy with the way the DoT is being mismanaged by Sec. Lim.

These people know too well that the Makati Business Club is backing Sec. Lim, but they should rein in their boy who is just too aloof for his own sake. If you ask me, Makati is not the heartland of this country’s tourism, but alas, our Tourism industry is being controlled by the big guns in Makati, which is why Sec. Lim isn’t supported by the folks in Tourism sector!

But I did get an emailed response from Mr. Bobby Joseph, not to respond to the article we wrote about the way the tourism development plan was rehashed, but rather he gave a lengthy proposal entitled “Give Tourism to the Private Sector to be Effective.” Mr. Joseph’s proposal is to do away with the Department of Tourism and instead privatize a group that would oversee the plans, strategies and implementation of the Tourism programs in the Philippines, similar to what they are doing in Hong Kong when it created the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB). Mind you, this proposal isn’t new as it was already suggested a long time ago. But this should be looked into.

In fact as a step forward, in the year 2009, Sen. Richard “Dick” Gordon enacted what is now the Tourism Act of 2009 or Rep. Act. No. 9593 creating the Tourism Congress, whereby there is a strong private sector representation. Alas, the private sector reps in the Tourism Congress are still within their three-year legal terms, hence when the Aquino Administration came into power, the new DoT Sec. Lim did not want to deal with them, even if there’s a law that created this body. This makes me wonder why my good friend Sen. Dick Gordon is extremely quiet when the new Tourism Secretary has virtually snubbed his law on Tourism. Let’s hear it from Sen. Dick!

Thus began a sorry state of division within the ranks of the Tourism Industry, which only widened when the new kid on the block (Sec. Albert Lim) decided without consulting the Tourism Congress to change the tried and tested Wow! Philippines!.. slogan by going on TV interviews denouncing this program as a marketing failure. Of course the players in the Tourism industry believed that it was a stunning marketing success. But then there is a new boss in the DoT who hates the previous administration with a passion!

On Nov. 15, 2010 without any prior consultation from the Tourism industry, Sec. Lim formally launched his new slogan dubbed “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” spending a huge amount of P3.7 million for this hoopla. But that launching only got boos from the industry, and Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III realized that all this was done by his Tourism Secretary without consulting the Tourism sector. Hence the President stepped in and put a stop to that ill-conceived marketing venture.

Because the Tourism Secretary spent a fortune for this ill-fated exercise, he is now facing a graft case in the Office of the Ombudsman for dishonesty, abuse of authority and incompetence and wasting public funds for that unnecessary extravaganza, which was filed last Dec. 9, 2010. Now again, the DoT is wasting again taxpayer’s money (P20 million worth?) to get a company to redo the Tourism Development Master Plan, when what he could have done was merely implement this master plan.

Meanwhile under her watch, Sec. Lim has finally convinced the President to sign that Open Skies Policy. But if you want to know whether new foreign airlines are flying to the Philippines, I’m sorry to disappoint you because there are no new carriers flying foreign tourists here. In fact the foreign carriers flying in and out of the Philippines are profiting from Filipino Overseas Foreign Workers (OFWs) who fly all over the world. So where are the foreign tourists? Incidentally, did you know that there are some 70 foreign airlines given entitlements to fly to Cebu, but only Silk Air, Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, Jeju Air, Qatar Airways and Cathay Pacific are flying in and out of Cebu? So why do we need an Open Skies policy when those foreign carriers are not flying to Cebu anyway? Wake up Pres. PNoy!!

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