More fun??

I think it’s a misprint when they say ‘It’s more fun in the Philippines’.  What they mean I guess is that ‘It’s more FAN’.  Yeah, right.  More fan because we’re in a tropical country, very high humidity and it’s very hot.  Maybe they also mean ‘More Pan’ because we’re pretty much surrounded by bakeries selling bread or ‘PAN’.

The dictatorship of Abnoy is targeting 10 Million tourist arrivals for the year 2012.  That I think is a fairy tale target because currently we only receive about 3.5 million tourists a year.  They include balikbayans so if you do your math correctly, you’ll estimate that there are only about 1.5 million genuine tourists who arrived in our country.

What went wrong? That’s the number one question that the former Ad agency executive who now heads the Tourism Ministry should ask.  First it’s not just about the slogan, logos and promotional materials.  It’s about branding and taking good care of our brand.  How can we establish a good tourism brand when government changes their brand every time there’s a new occupant in Malacanang.  We need to build a brand that we can sustain.  Something that would last that people the world over can recognize. 

Second, we don’t spend much on infrastructures like building good airports, hotels and developing tourist destinations.  In fact, NAIA being named as the World’s Worst Airport does not go well with our target 10 million tourist arrival per year.

A lot of businesses are dependent on the Tourism Industry.  If we can increase the tourist arrivals even by 100% from the previous 3.5 million, it will help our economy a lot in the sense that more jobs will be created as a result of tourism boom.

The only drawback with tourism boom is its ugly side, prostitution and sex tourism.  Yes, you can say that it will support a lot of people too, but flesh trade is a no no.  I don’t want to be hollier than thou but if we can, we should avoid it.  The challenge is how we can balance our national interest over the welfare of our countrymen.