The tourism slogan is an amusing distraction given the gradual destruction of an independent judiciary and the oligarchy’s continuing capture of the Philippine economy. The “It’s more fun in the Philippines” blurb also fueled the nationalist sentiments of Pinoys to the point where the culture of denial blatantly glosses over the festering sores of poverty and inequality just to promote the slogan. We ought to see the slogan for what it is – a government program to generate revenue for the tourism businesses – and raise more taxes aka “government revenue” from the tourism sector.
The question is – are we doing this right?
What is Tourism?
Here are some definitions from Wikipedia
In general, tourists visit in order to: 1) experience attractions, food, culture 2)visit friends and relatives and 3)attend and participate in events.
Where is Philippine Tourism coming from?
I recall that during the Ramos presidency (1992-1998) the battle cry was to promote investments, trade, and tourism. These three were always together as part of a continuum of economic development. The model we used can be encapsulated in the following manner:
1. Tourism serves as a “demo”, an opener into the Philippines. It gives people an idea of what the country can offer. What it’s like to live here, albeit temporarily.
2. Trade is bolstered by tourism. When tourists get to know more about the stuff that’s being done here and the stuff that can be sold here as well – more trade opportunities are opened up.
3. The sustained interaction of tourism and trade creates sustainable conditions for long term involvement with the economy leading to investments.
4. More foreign investments leads to more foreign tourists and more trade – and the cycle continues.
It was a good model, we created the buzz and put the Philippines right back into the radar screen of global business. Unfortunately, after we primed foreigners to tour and trade and got them on the verge of investing – the Constitution put on a dampener on foreign investments.
I realized that the model’s flaw is that it did not factor in the role of the restrictive constitutional provisions. In doing so, the Philippines missed out on leveraging tourism inflows to increase economic growth – BIG TIME.
And given that Filipinos were resistant to opening the economy to competition; bought the nationalist protectionist line hook, line and sinker; and did not want to tamper the constitution – there wasn’t really much we can do, except offer fiscal incentives. Obviously, we we wear easily beaten by the more liberal economies of Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Today, we are still taking a beating.
Then the ASEAN financial crisis hit and tourism arrivals declined during Estrada’s term, and continued into the earlier part of Arroyo’s term.
Still, it does not take rocket science to figure out that prior to Arroyo, foreign tourist arrivals averaged two million (2M) per year. By 2004, tourism arrivals were increasing. The 3,000,000 tourist arrivals per year was breached in 2007 and has stayed at the 3.5M range in Nov 2011.
I wonder how the tourism arrival figures will look like by the end of 2012. Will there be an increase? Will there be a decrease? How will it look like two years from now, three years from now, at the end of Aquino’s term? Here’s what I know though, the Philippines is struggling to hit the 3M per year level while its neighbors in ASEAN exceed 20 M foreign tourist arrivals per year. For instance in 2008, Malaysia had 22,052,000, Thailand had 14,536,000, even tiny Singapore had more than twice the foreign tourist arrivals of the Philippines at 7,778,000.
If it’s really more fun in the Philippines, how come more are going elsewhere BUT the Philippines? Not only that, how come tourism arrivals are going lock step with the investment growth in these areas?
Shouting harder does not make your product any better.
At times, we get too stuck up with the slogan instead of letting the product speak for itself. Thus, instead of arousing curiosity, attraction, and fascination – we get the push back. The problem is we get angry when we get a sales objection and try to overrun it with slogans when we ought to be listening to the market and satisfying it.
With the kidnapping of foreigners and tourists taking root as a cottage industry as Aquino throws the Philippine economy into a ditch, it begs the question on how this will affect foreign tourist arrivals.
The typical Pinoy answer would be to put the onus on government to improve tourism. I am not sure if that is the right answer because government has this habit of creating more problems as a solution to another problem.
Is Sloganeering Enough?
I would prefer a market-driven solution, one that involves both foreign and domestic providers, on equal footing.
Being an archipelago, the Philippines faces a disadvantage – the lack of contiguousness of its attractions. These however, is not insurmountable and in fact the lack of contiguousness should be turned into an advantage – a Unique Selling Proposition even. The upside of being an archipelago after all is that geographically separate islands tend to develop diverse customs, traditions, food stuff, and the like.
Access to these attractions will always be paramount – and the question is whether to limit the providers to Filipino businesses only, or to expand the providers so in order to increase market share. Of course, the current Filipino predisposition to have Filipinos only, distribute Filipino attractions misses out on the wider market covered by non-Filipino travel agencies. Indeed one of the issues has been of cost. Is it because the products are rare? Or is it because there are only few suppliers? Instead of telling Pinoys and their foreign guests to make do with what’s available – what’s keeping us from letting anyone in who can make what’s available, even better? Supply-side economics and the restrictive Philippine constitution’s economics obviously don’t mix.
Filipino tourism groups should also start stepping up to the plate and stop using tax money to pay for their promotions. Rather, the industry should start looking at more tax breaks for promotions expenses, staff training, capital outlays instead of hitting on subsidies from taxpayers.
Reality Check
In closing, I look back at the time when I was still with the “Invest In Davao” project and we were on a mission to generate more trade, investment, tourism arrivals for my hometown of Davao. So there I was delivering my spiel – why Davao is the place to be – no typhoons, stable peace and order, access to water, stable electricity, literate work force. I was also bragging about the tourism growth in Davao of more than 25% compared to the previous year.
Then I asked our host about their tourism. Our host at that time were the people who constructed Orlando International Airport. They told me that tourism arrivals in Orlando were 25 million. Sheesh.. I was bragging about Davao’s 150,000 tourist arrivals – and these guys were talking in the millions. These guys were operating in a different place of consciousness… lol.
And the past couple of days reminded me of those darn days in 1997. It’s more fun in the Philippines? Really? Let me clue you in
Mocking and contempt aside, for Filipinos who have already left, the only reason why it’s more fun in the Philippines is family and friends. And even that – is starting to look.. not fun. Not when you see the poverty and chicanery that’s being pulled over their heads. Tourism is not an end itself – but it can be. But just because it can be, should it then remain a silo? I assert that tourism is but one of many tools that can be harnessed for economic well-being under a framework of free markets and limited government.
As the Philippines faces a confluence of issues that in my opinion are driven by economics, we need to look beyond slogans – and give importance to the product. After all no slogan can beat a satisfied customer’s testimonial. And no slogan can whitewash an irate customer’s wrath.
Maybe when the Philippines tops the Orlando foreign visitor arrivals of 3.675 million million in 2010 (and Orlando is not even a country!), I’ll believe that it’s more fun in the Philippines.
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