Travel destination

Foreigners see what’s unique in a country: the annual traslacion, the massive procession celebrating the Feast of the Black Nazarene, has drawn the attention of global travel search site Skyscanner. In a recent post, Skyscanner listed Manila as one of the tropical destinations to visit in January, when the days are cooler and the traslacion takes place.

There are many other unique events and destinations in the Philippines, familiar to Filipinos but still largely unknown to international travelers. With effective marketing, they can boost tourism. More people are traveling and looking for new destinations outside their countries.

The attractions in other Southeast Asian destinations have gained renown. There is a wide room for growth in the travel industry in the Philippines, which is trailing its neighbors notably Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam in terms of tourist arrivals.

The International Finance Corp., a unit of the World Bank Group, reportedly plans to expand its exposure to tourism in the Philippines, seeing what it describes as the “huge potential” of the sector for generating employment particularly in the countryside.

The Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines, in its annual “Arangkada” report for accelerating economic growth, also identifies travel and tourism as one of the country’s most promising industries.

Tourism has helped power economic growth in many countries. The last time the global economy slowed down, affecting Chinese manufacturing and exports, one of the sectors that Beijing boosted as an alternative growth engine was tourism. The effort continues.

Developing tourism can go hand in hand with the Duterte administration’s ambitious “Build Build Build” infrastructure program. It can attract more private investments in all the areas that feed the travel industry. Tourism allows decent jobs and livelihood opportunities to be generated on site, reducing the need for residents to find work in the cities or abroad. The current trend toward ecotourism is also a boon to environmental protection.

But developing tourism is so challenging that in some countries, the head of government acts as the tourism czar, taking a direct hand in coordinating actions in both the public and private sectors to stimulate domestic travel and draw foreign visitors. This task cannot be entrusted to junket-loving incompetent flyweights who get little respect whether among their peers in government or from the travel industry.

While the potential for tourism growth is there, the government must put the right persons in charge to make that growth possible.