‘Health-tels’ to rise in RP

ANGELES CITY – Instead of hotels the Philippines will have “health-tels,” a former tourism official has predicted.

Aside from traditional tourist spots like Baguio City and Boracay island, there will be more authentic off-the-beaten-path destinations, and more tourists will be carrying laptops instead of tour brochures to search for places to visit.

Former tourism secretary Dr. Mina Gabor made the “fearless forecasts” on tourism in her speech at the 1st Seminar on Community-based Rural Tourism held here recently and attended by tourism regional directors and representatives from local government units.

Central Luzon Department of Tourism (DOT) director Ronaldo Tiotuico said Gabor compared the level of her tourism forecast to one that sees Antarctica as the world’s next favorite ecotourism destination, complete with hotels, restaurants and full-service tours, with the slogan: “Visit the Antarctica Before It Melts Down.”

Tiotuico quoted Gabor’s forecasts, saying that the tourism industry will soon be dominated by laptop-toting travelers who favor healthy living.

Tourists will prefer shorter distances and shorter travel time and they will look for not so popular destinations off the beaten track. Authenticity will become the most important element in tourism.

Gabor said an emerging fad today is catering to the aging population that would give rise to so-called “health-tels” or hotels that offer spas, healthy food and other health-related amenities.

“Tourist facilities will soon make way for health-related amenities like health and fitness spas to accommodate those that have fallen in love with whatever is healthy and safe. Establishments will build lower rise steps, more handrails and wider doors to make the aging tourists more comfortable. Thus the buzzword health-tels,” she said.

She said more tourists, especially Europeans and North Americans, who are older but better-educated will seek ecotourism and cultural travel products.

Rural tourism will be in greater demand and tourists will look for places where they can experience hands-on activities like milking cows, planting rice and joining traditional rituals practiced by the native population, she said.

With the number of laptop-carrying tourists expected to rise, hotels should provide more safety deposit boxes not only for cash and jewelry but also for laptops, she said.

“Today, we see an emerging trend when travelers will be depending on the Internet to scour the global travel community for interesting places to visit. Even tourism and hotel management schools will move out of the classrooms and out of the library, onto the web and into the destinations,” Gabor said.

She said thick travel guidebooks that describe every step of the way will soon be a thing of the past as travelers find the web more convenient to use. And so, authors will be more inclined to do area-specific guidebooks.

Gabor said family-oriented tours will grow. “It used to be that children are not welcome in tourist establishments. Today, we see a trend to build rooms where kids can play, out of reach of the parents’ attention and safely taken care of by hotel staff,” she said.

Gabor cited the need for the local travel and tourism industry to keep up with these emerging trends in travel and tourism to better respond to the challenges and opportunities now facing the global travel community.

The UN World Tourism Organization’s forecast is that worldwide tourists will increase to 1.6 billion by 2020, compared to 898 million in 2007.

Gabor said that airlines and travel agencies will soon close ranks with financial institutions to offer travel loans such as the old fly-now pay-later plan as more and more people are bound to cross borders for various reasons.

Airlines will continue to rack up significant losses as they struggle to deal with high fuel costs, new security requirements, an onslaught of low-cost carriers and competition over open skies agreements among nations.

“Tourists will soon go for home food delivery in hotels rather than in-house food. It is not uncommon to find hotels offering food ordered from a nearby food chain like McDonald’s or Jollibee. They would rather eat something that they like back home,” she also said.

She said that prayer rooms and services for no-pork menu will be installed in tourist facilities to accommodate the growing population of Islamic travelers.

Fortunately for English-speaking Filipinos, the introduction of new technologies in the upscale tourism industry will not replace the human element in service delivery, Gabor said.

More tourists will patronize hotels with quality service with a human touch, she added.