POOR airport facilities, poor quality of roads, safety and security, and corruption are among the reasons the Philippines fall behind other Southeast Asian countries in attracting tourists, the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011 of the World Economic Forum revealed.
The report said the Philippines ranks 112 in terms of quality of air-transport infrastructure; 99 in terms of effectiveness of marketing and branding; 132 in terms of hotel rooms; 123 in terms of transparency of government policy-making; 105 in terms of reliability of police services; 109 in terms of safety and security; 114 in terms of quality of roads (especially to tourist destinations) and 70 in terms of government prioritization of the travel and tourism industry.
TourismWatch Philippines founder Robert Lim Joseph said these are the factors that the government should look into and address to boost tourism.
Joseph said this is contrary to recurring claims by open-skies lobbyists that the Philippines must further open up its skies to attract more tourists.
Joseph cited the report that the Philippines is one of the most liberalized in terms of air access by foreign carriers as revealed by the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011, which ranked the Philippines 29th out of 139 countries in terms of openness of its skies.
In the same report, the Philippines ranks number 30 out of 139 countries in terms of “available seat kilometers, international.” The report further revealed that for ticket taxes and airport charges, the Philippines ranked 20 in the world out of 139 countries.
Joseph said it is not the openness of skies nor availability of seats among foreign carriers but other factors are keeping tourists from visiting the country unlike in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia where tourists come in droves.
“Open-skies advocates have been harping on the need for full open skies to attract more tourists but in reality we have already a very liberalized air policy as shown by the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011 of the World Economic Forum,” Joseph stressed.
Joseph said based on a list of 15 “most problematic factors for doing business,” corruption and inefficient government bureaucracy are among the most problematic factors for doing business in the Philippines and which have adverse impact on tourism development.
He said because of corruption, “we are only able to build one airport instead of two or three airports, and the one we built is not the priority.”
He cited that it would have been better for the government to have spent P7 billion in the expansion and development of the Puerto Princesa airport instead of the Iloilo airport.
He added that in Davao, a P7- billion airport was built and there is only one foreign airline servicing the route.
==============================================================================
By: Sara Fabunan
Source: Business Mirror, Oct. 1, 2011
To view the original article, click here.
Comment here