Agri-tourism: The right prescription

If there is a place in the country that ends its Christmas celebration right after December 25 it should be Cebu City. Why? If you are keen enough, you can certainly observe that department stores, hotels and restaurants, among others, are changing their motifs and decorations into that of the Sinulog right away. Not only that, as early as October, the Sinulog beat can already be heard as the participating contingents of the Sinulog Mardi Gras practice their moves and perfect their rituals, as if, the Sinulog comes before Christmas.

As the second weekend of the year comes, the show begins. So that, last weekend, the deafening drums have started to roll and the energizing beats have begun to tickle everyone’s foot and buttock. With its dominance, every tourist (foreign or domestic) may think that that was it, the Sinulog Mardi Gras. Yet, it was just the Sinulog sa Kabataan. Truly, a lot more can be expected as the celebrations and competitions heighten towards Sunday.

Then, as usual, the day after, the deafening drums are muted, the energizing beats dissipated and the equally revitalized crowd degenerated. That unequivocally means that the tourist-drawing weeklong Sinulog 2018 revelries shall be finally over. Such is the reality of the Sinulog festivities as far as our tourism initiatives are concern. It gives us a week bounty. Considering that a year has fifty two weeks, it simply means, a week of abundance and fifty one weeks of scarcity.

Fortunately for us, a good concept was then introduced, the Suroy Suroy Sugbo (SSS), an initiative of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI). As conceptualized, it was originally envisioned to invigorate tourism by developing places of interest and constructing infrastructure. However, as we’ve witnessed, when it started, it was carried not in the way it was envisioned (by CCCI) but was used by then Gov. Gwen Garcia as her political propaganda machine at taxpayers’ expense. Luckily though, when Gov. Junjun Davide took over, the SSS went on as intended.

With the looks of it, we might entertain that feeling of contentment. However, if we go deeper and browse through significant facts, we will surely find anything but satisfaction. For one, while global tourism continue to grow (which is now more than 1 billion tourist arrivals), we continue to go down the cellar in the biennial Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report (TTCR) Survey.

Sadly, while we placed 74th in the 2015 TTCR Survey, we went down five notches in 2017 to 79th. While the report took note of our rich natural resources (37th) and high price competitiveness (22nd) categories, we ranked miserably on areas of efficiency of ground support which is a result of reduced government budgets (107th, losing 14 places). Moreover, due probably to the Bohol and the Marawi City incidents, security concerns remain high (126th). Clearly, therefore, as we are ranked poorly in the latter categories, we placed 79th overall.

So that (while figures may vary in 2017, ranking will likely remain the same), among the ASEAN member nations, we remain in 6th place, a very far 6th with only 4,833,368 arrivals as can be seen in the ASEAN Tourism Statistics Database in 2014 (the latest available figures). As expected, in terms of tourist arrivals, Malaysia led all countries in the ASEAN with 27,437,315, followed by Thailand (24,779,768), Singapore (15,095,152), Indonesia (9,435,411) and Viet Nam (7,874,312). Just right behind us is Cambodia with 4,502,775.

It is noteworthy though that again, the CCCI has plans “to initiate programs that would push agri-tourism this year.” As CCCI President Melanie Ng “expressed her optimism that promoting agri-tourism would further boost the countryside development as well as augment the livelihood means of farmers and communities”, this program as higher chances of success. If, indeed, successful, it can also prevent rural exodus. Moreover, if the local government units (LGUs), as called on by CCCI, supports this laudable initiative, then its (LGUs) funds may be realigned to focus more on infrastructure development to make these places of interests accessible to tourists.

The tour and travel operators, businessmen as they are, will certainly package tours if the products are saleable and reachable. Thus, clearly, through initiatives like these, tourism in the island will be a daily affair not a yearly or a quarterly event.

Indeed, we truly understand the necessity of promoting our tourism potentials both here and abroad. The need to inform potential market of our capabilities is unquestionable. In doing so, however, we must not forget that like any business, the key to any success is continued patronage. This can only be achieved once we can develop a strong customer base that will not only give us repeat businesses but shall tell the world of our unparalleled capabilities.