The Eye of the Beholder

I was watching television while convalescing from this weather-given cough when I saw an ad of Latin America. It was a soccer ad but what I noticed about it was its background. At the backdrop of the one-minuter was a look alike of the Old Silliman Hall of Silliman University, in Dumague City.

In the many places I have been to in our country alone, I have seen a lot of similar looking places that sometimes I even catch myself getting disoriented as where I am at a particular time. Sometimes some places look so similar I find myself wondering what tourists really want in that place that they haven't seen elsewhere.

What really makes a place unique? What is there to offer tourists who want to visit your destination?

I realized that the key is on the experience and the memories one takes with him when he goes home. The richness of a place's history, the distinctive pride of its culture and the exceptional convenience or the thrill of inconveniences that makes the total experience a pleasure.

A place has to have a character of its own. A mystic appeal that will make it remembered and desired enough to be returned to. It can take the quality of a friend, engaging, interesting and a company good to keep.

When I was a kid, we would come to Cebu City just to shop at White Gold or Gaisano Colon. Have a meal at Ding How and watch the city lights from the Diamond Restaurant of then Skyvue Hotel.

To be in Manila meant being in Ongpin, Quad, SM and Ayala and later on, Jollibee.

Now malls are not just in big cities, they are sprinkled in quaint places like Bacolod City, San Carlos City and Dumaguete City carrying with them names we thought were only in the metro areas. Small boutiques, tasteful and elegant prep themselves in Tagbilaran City. Bais City and Bayawan City. The novelty to shop in SM in Manila can now be enjoyed in Cebu, Iloilo and soon I learned in Bacolod too.

When they set up the first Jollibee and McDonald's here, I thought, "Wait! I want to see them in Manila and have Brutus and Whimpey's here in Cebu!" But that's not the way development and entrepreneurship is moving. With the influx of franchise businesses we will expect our cities to look more and more alike with similar food stations cropping up. So what's my point?

We need to set up good memories, good experiences, good friendships to keep our tourists coming back. We have to send them off with a hear full of the character of our place so out of the abundance of their hearts they will talk more about our land. Then we get more people who may want to spend their good money here and enjoy with the hope that they gather the same or even more fantastic reminiscences.

For those of us who still remember the movie With Honors, maybe you can recall the significance of the pebbles of the character of Joe Pesci. Every pebble in his sack had a corresponding cherished memory. All the items in his little sack were pebbles, and the pebbles looked similar. But each one had a story, and that is what we hope we can also give to our tourist friends.

Let us create good memories. Let us be honest as drivers, courteous as waiters, attentive as front desk staff and industrious as chambermaids. Let us be passionate in our cooking, intense in our singing, flamboyant in our dancing and fun in our living.

Let us strive to be adored enough to be returned to.