Noy: Tourist arrivals may reach 5 M this year

MANILA, Philippines - The country could exceed its 4.6-million tourist arrival target this year if current trends continue, President Aquino said yesterday.

Speaking at the Euromoney Philippine Investment Forum, the President cited the “leaps and bounds” in the country’s tourism industry.

“I’ve always said that tourism is a low-lying fruit for the Philippine economy that has long gone unpicked. But thanks to a reenergized Department of Tourism care of Secretary (Ramon) Jimenez, and thanks to an excellent marketing campaign, coupled with a liberalized aviation industry,” the President said.

He said the Philippines welcomed more than 400,000 visitors in January alone, making it the “highest monthly visitor count in our history.”

“And if we could sustain this, we are set to welcome almost 4.8 million visitors this year. This is really close – or this is very close – to five million. We are still quite away from our target of 10 million yearly visitors by 2016. But imagine: two years ago we were expecting only about three million visitors a year; and now there is the possibility of welcoming five million. We still have four years and three months left to reach our target and we know that, each year, we can grow our number of visitors closer and closer to our goal,” he said.

The President reiterated his invitation to businessmen to invest in the country’s infrastructure, agriculture and tourism sectors even as he gave assurance that the government is doing its best to make it easier for people to invest in the Philippines.

“And that means creating a level playing field, curbing corruption, and eliminating inefficiencies,” the President said.

He cited the putting up of a Philippine Business Registry and one-stop-shops where entrepreneurs could transact with multiple government agencies. He said investors could also register their businesses in just 20 to 30 minutes.

“The bottom line here is: if we want businesses to set up shop here and create jobs for our people, we have to be competitive,” Aquino said.

“We have to focus on industries where there are actual opportunities for mutual benefit. The world is getting increasingly smaller, and we find ourselves pitted against countries (that) have very competitive business propositions,” he said.

The President said “we could not compromise our position by making life more difficult for companies because of corruption or red tape.”

“We cannot sacrifice the jobs created by these businesses, because it is our people who will take the brunt of the hit if these businesses choose to operate elsewhere. We need to continue fostering a good environment for business – one that is both stable and predictable,” he said.

The President added that the road networks and airports “are very, very essential” in boosting tourist arrivals.

“NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1), I understand, is approaching saturation levels. There is a need to really expand our gateways and various studies are underway to determine exactly how best to achieve that,” Aquino said.

“There are limitations to how much you can expand NAIA, especially given the density of the population in the surrounding areas. But that should not stop us from having the facilities available for the tourists to come in which, we believe, as I said, is a very low-lying fruit that has yet to be picked,” Aquino said.

He said the government is studying a proposal for the establishment of a nautical highway that would cut down travel time from Luzon to Mindanao from three days to 15 hours.