Tourism is an industry in this town

ANAHEIM, California – If our officials at the national and local government levels want to learn about how to work together to bring about tourism development, they should study how they are doing it here. There is no doubt tourism is the major industry in Anaheim. In 2004, a government website says, visitors spent $7.3 billion in Orange County (a nearly eight-percent increase from the previous year), $3.6 billion of which was generated by Disneyland alone.

Tourists in their shorts and colorful shirts are all over the main avenues around the Disneyland development. Because of an ever-growing number of visitors, hotels, motels, restaurants, and retail centers were built to meet their demands. At the time of Disneyland’s opening in 1955, the city website recalls, Anaheim only had 87 hotel/motel rooms; presently, those numbers have grown to nearly 20,000.

The rise in tourism has encouraged the city to update and add to its facilities. In other words, government fulfilled its basic function of working on infrastructure. One of these is the convention center. Since being dedicated in 1967, the Anaheim Convention Center has undergone five major expansions, the most recent of which, completed in December 2000, enlarged the center by 40 percent to 1.6 million square feet. There had also been a lot of infrastructure changes in the Anaheim Resort district (surrounding Disneyland and Anaheim Convention Center area) during the past few years, including something we need badly back home – improved signage.

In 2001 a massive $5-billion renovation of the Anaheim Resort District (the greater Anaheim Convention Center/Disneyland area, comprised of 1,100 acres) was completed. The project began in 1994 when the city of Anaheim approved a $174-million Anaheim Resort Capital Improvement Program designed to transform the district into a more attractive, pedestrian-friendly destination.

The Anaheim Convention Center underwent a $177-million expansion, completed in December 2000. The expansion now houses 815,000 square feet of exhibit space, making it the largest exhibit facility on the West Coast. I was checking out the list of conventions scheduled and it seems they are booked solid up to the end of the year.

Also completed is a $396-million "freshening" of the entire Resort District with landscaping and infrastructure improvements, including the addition of 15,000 new trees, shrubs, and flowers, and something we badly need in our resort areas, improved signage.

The Anaheim Resort Transit (ART), which began operating in 2001, features 10 buses, two trams, and 25 trolleys providing access to all area resorts, attractions, hotels, restaurants, and shops. In the summer of 2005, Disneyland began an 18-month celebration of its 50th anniversary with several new attractions expected to draw more visitors to the park than ever before. No wonder there is that horde of tourists all around and the summer peak season has barely began.

What they have here is an integrated development, something that we can do for Boracay, if we had enough political will to do it. I understand the Disneyland developments can handle over a hundred thousand visitors a day in peak season. It is easy to see that this one city alone attracts more tourists than our entire country. Of course they have the advantage of a big and affluent market that’s just there. Still, we should be able to pick up a few ideas on how to get government and industry to work together to build up tourism as a major industry.

It is just so fascinating to see the many elements of a successful tourism development fall into place in this one city in Orange County. It is private sector driven, with much of the capital expenses and marketing undertaken by private industry. But government is there to facilitate things for them and build public infrastructure. The partnership that seems to work so well is the kind of thing we should try to replicate in our much smaller projects.

Petropolitics

A reader sent in this reaction to our column item on how governments behave in relation to natural resource development.

Friedman also wrote an article in the May-June 2006 edition of Foreign Policy magazine entitled "The First Law of Petropolitics". In the article, he plotted a timeline chart which illustrated a pattern where news related to the advancement of freedom tends to be more abundant in periods where the price per barrel of oil is lower, and vice-versa. This is true both on a global and per-petrolist state perspective.

The gist is that if oil-backed regimes do not have to tax their people in order to survive, they do not have to listen to their people or represent their people’s wishes.

The article also mentioned that oil-producing countries such as Norway and the UK have accomplished a high level of individual freedom for its citizens because these countries became prosperous before they started drilling for oil.

Considering that the kind of patronage-based political leadership the Philippines has historically had, there is a higher probability that it could go the way of Kazakhstan and Venezuela. Even now, we can see this happening to a lesser degree with the economy highly dependent on OFW remittances.

How much more despotic can the leadership become when it is flush with mineral dollars? Maybe this is the reason why those in the Filipino political and economic elite are very enthusiastic about the country’s prospects in the mining industry. Because they have access to Time Magazine and The Economist, they can see very clearly what the prospects are for their own interests.

More on doctors

Aileen De los Santos-Puno, M.D. wrote in reaction to the series of reader letters on Pinoy doctors and America.

I wanted to comment on the "Doctors and Nurses" article last June 21, 2006.

I am also a UST medical school graduate (late 1990’s class). I completed residency training in the United States. While I respect the other physician’s reasons for choosing a nursing career, I wanted to comment on some of the financial figures.

The starting salary as a resident is anywhere from $35,000 to $45,000 depending on which state you get matched. You get an increase yearly. On top of that you also get other perks. In our program we got $2,000 meal allowance, $1,500 educational allowance (to buy books, laptop, palm, etc.) and conference allowance annually. We also received free medical and dental insurance thus I was able to deliver my firstborn without paying any medical bills. If you add all that, I would say it’s reasonable salary.

The USMLE Steps 1, 2 and CSA can be finished in less than a year. It only takes longer if you don’t pass on first try. Step 3 is usually taken during residency. At that time you are already earning so it’s not a big burden. It was around $700 when I took it. Some of my friends passed the USMLE steps just studying on their own. They only spent minimally on xeroxed review books. I took the Kaplan review course for Steps 1 and 2 (well worth it) and I studied on my own for CSA and Step 3.

Even if you spend P500,000 during the application process, once you get matched you can easily recover that amount... and much more! Thus I would still encourage physicians from the Philippines to work as physicians abroad.

Disney spell

The reason Disneyland is so popular has to do with the way it transports people of all ages to another world.

Take this guy who explains to his doctor, "Doc, when I got up this morning, I put on a pair of white gloves and started calling my wife Minnie.   Then on the way to work I couldn’t help singing, ‘Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s off to work I go,’ and when I got there I started calling everyone Happy, Grumpy, Dopey and so on.   What’s the matter with me?"

"That’s easy," replies the doctor. "You’re having Disney spells."

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]