Maintaining Good Philippine Tourism Matters For Good Economics

It's the summer months and you know what that means -- it's time for tourism in the Philippines to bloom again. I thought of the slogans we've had such as those above though I'd probably remove "more" from David Guerrero's slogan. Now it's time to consider why good tourism matters and what we can do to maintain it.

What would attract people more in the long run? Would it be a good experience or a catchy slogan? True, catchy slogans do matter -- you have to tell people your product is good. The problem comes in when you use all the good marketing to market an otherwise failed product. Do you remember the Mar Roxas campaign? They did all the marketing with celebrities, had a lot of political ads left unaired in ABiaS-CBN (but I could be wrong) but we have to consider how Roxas lost the campaign. The same could be the situation of the Philippines if you don't do anything.

Part of maintaining good tourism is to have good airports. I'm glad to hear that the Ninoy Aquino International Airport is back on its toes but it's not enough -- it must continue to improve. It must start to address ongoing issues such as terrible taxi service (which many of them overcharge) or all the problems that were prevalent during the time of former president Noynoy Aquino such as bad comfort rooms, roofs falling apart -- there has to be continuous maintenance. One good example of why tourism in Davao City flourished under President Rodrigo R. Duterte was because of proper maintenance. That's one of the reasons why Davao managed to flourish in spite of whatever lapses were done by President Duterte while he was still the mayor.

What good would tourism do for the Philippine economy? Having more tourists may mean more customers for Filipino-owned business. Anybody who says that tourism doesn't help the economy at all is dreaming. You can imagine how tourists can help add more revenue to people's businesses. Let's just say you operate a Filipino food restaurant. You have foreigners who want to eat Filipino food. That means for every tourist you may get more revenue from them assuming you don't give the food for free. If tourism is at its peak season then expect restaurants that serve Filipino food to get more tourists. I've observed that there's usually a full house more during the tourism months in many Filipino restaurants I enjoy than during off-peak season. I could imagine how much money the owner must be making and how much revenue can be charged based on net income.

Tourism may also mean foreign investors' opportunity to do business in the Philippines. Tourists can find new opportunities that's why I'm advocating for economic liberalization because tourism alone isn't the only source of income. Foreign direct investors themselves may get 50% to 100% ownership yet they are still bound to Filipino laws -- they are still required to pay taxes, treat their employees right and follow existing laws if they want to continue doing business in the Philippines. Tourism may not only provide additional revenues for businessmen during season. They may also provide additional income in the long run when some of them become foreign investors.

We must also address the downside of tourism where you can have a threat to a certain region's natural resources from overuse. Would the Boracay situation be a call to ban tourism altogether? No, it's a call for responsible tourism. One should be wary of what bad can happen in tourism while looking at its positive effects as well. It's like investing where you consider taking low risks with moderate returns than high risks with high returns. You'd like to minimize your risk, don't you? This would mean setting up policies such as nature spots in the Philippines should have some reasonable enforcement of certain policies such as no littering of one's garbage here and there or that businessmen involved with tourists should follow guidelines such as proper waste disposal and having rest periods for certain nature spots to avoid them having the same situation as Boracay.