Marco Polo sets measures to survive a gloomy 2009

Because of a perceived slowdown in the country’s tourism industry this year in line with the probable impacts of the looming global recession, some players in the sector are now preparing for safety nets that could aide them to survive the pinch.

In an interview, Marco Polo Plaza Cebu general manager Hans Hauri said that they prefer not to sulk about the crisis and instead prepare for what’s coming.

“We have long term strategies and that is to deliver quality, training and developing our people and we also have short term tactical actions that if our radar would sense that there is a downturn then it would be time to apply these actions such as having lesser items in the store room if there are lesser customers coming,” said Hauri.

He said that slowly they are seeing a definite slowdown in their advanced bookings as there is a noticeable reversed shift from long term to short term bookings.

“Now, travellers don’t plan ahead their usual business trips because they try to see first if their visit pays returns or if it makes sense to do the trip,” he said.

The National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) previously identified tourism along with other sectors such as construction, export-oriented manufacturing industries, and retail trade to be among the industries that will be susceptible to the global economic turmoil this year.

However, despite the grim prospects on the tourism industry, Hauri continues to be optimistic.

“Even if the economic environment is fragile, business travel has to go on and if there is a low demand we have to find business because there is always business around, they might not be traditional customers so we should not just sit and do nothing if the hotel gets low occupancy,” said Huari.

”Other industries also have challenges but this is an opportunity for transformation. If the usual markets are not coming in then we have to run for new markets. The recession is only in America but the rest of the world is not under shambles. We have to always improve our products because tourists today are spoiled and they are not content on just secondary products,” he stressed further.

So far, Hauri is seeing positive prospects with the upcoming Sinulog celebration and as a matter of fact since October of last year their bookings have already started to fill in and at this point they are already fully booked for the event.

However, Hauri is expecting a possible decline of Chinese tourist arrivals this January compared to last year because of the early celebration of the Chinese New Year.

For the previous fiscal year, Marco Polo Plaza Hotel Cebu managed to achieve 70 percent occupancy level and grew seven percent over 2007 operations, revealed Hauri.

He said that their restaurant, room revenues and other business segments also showed growth over the previous fiscal year.

But Hauri shared that along with the downturn experienced by multinational companies, a possible softening of the MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and events) market could be expected this year which could mean lesser occupancy.

He said that since the fourth quarter of last year, multi-national companies have started to slow down their spending on promotional events and motivational workshops.

Even traditional markets such as Koreans are also expected to slow down further this as they are now badly hit with the global recession.

“The year 2008 was still a good year for us because we exceeded our 2007 results. This year, we have modest expectations because we are seeing a flat growth for the sector so its time to look for new markets and watch our costs,” he said.

To also address the possible slowdown, Hauri said that they will try to look out for a wider environment by attending trade fairs and collaborating with fair organizers in the international level this year.