Putting the brakes on our tourism growth!

I just got my subscription for the April 29/May 6 issue of Time magazine… and as reported in the social media circles, it was about the 100 Most Influential People in the World. This report was apparently splashed in the front pages of Philippine dailies, which in effect was something of a breaking news that our very own President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III was amongst the top 100 most influential people in the world, complete with a Time magazine cover photo of laughing President. However, this became viral in the social networking sites that reported it was sheer falsehood that President Aquino was on the cover of Time magazine.

Indeed Time magazine came out with not one but five front covers and it was the first time that I’ve seen them do this. First on the cover was Malala Yousafzia, who at 15 years old was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan, but she survived to fight for women’s rights. The second cover was Jay Z, an American rapper or hip-hop artist, he is followed by Li Na, China’s Tennis sensation and Aamir Khan, an Indian film actor, director and Ballywood producer and lastly, Time’s cover photo featured Elon Musk, an American.

The best thing that Time did was to put his name on the “Plus” section. I will certainly not dispute Time Magazine’s choice of P-Noy as one of the world’s most influential people. After all he is President of a nation of 90 plus million Filipinos.

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I saw that open letter coming from the Philippine Hotel Federation, Inc. represented by its President Arthur Lopez which made an appeal to President Aquino for him to revoke the Board of Investment’s Regulation no. 2013-001 which was approved last March 5, 2013 that imposed locational restrictions and granting very limited incentives to “projects on accommodation establishments” located in the four major tourism areas of Metro Manila, Cebu City, Mactan Island and Boracay Island.”

If there is anything positive going for the Philippines, it is our tourism industry, where we are experiencing much of our economic growth. Forget the industrial sector as China already beat us in that category. Tourism is our only hope with our beautiful beaches and that ever-famous Filipino hospitality with those contaminating smiles that the other nations could only hope to possess. So the question is, why is the BOI throwing a monkey wrench on our tourism growth? Mind you, we’re not even halfway to our target of 10 million tourists by the year 2016; our government bureaucrats are already putting stumbling blocks or the brakes on our tourism growth.

As the open letter pointed out, “The World Economic Forum Travel and Tourism Competitive Report of 2013, while citing the Philippines as the most improved country in the region, also cited the difficulty and high costs of starting a business and lengthy processes as major challenges to attracting foreign direct investments in the country. Mr. President, we join you in promoting the Philippines as a viable investment haven, offering both fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, most significant of which is the income tax holiday, to provide the Philippines with a competitive edge over its ASEAN neighbors.”

As Sir Arthur Lopez pointed out, “Even the Department of Tourism endorsed the retention of the income tax holiday in the said four areas, citing anticipated room demand in line with the National Tourism Development Plan’s goal in achieving 10M foreign tourists.” I understand that the Philippines will be bidding for hosting of the Rotary International Convention in 2014. So ask yourself, how can we win this bidding if Cebu for instance cannot find 5,000 rooms for the Rotary guests?

The Asia Pacific Economic Conferences (APEC) will be holding a series of conferences, but without additional rooms, we might as well not make any bid at all. I recall those days when conference delegates to Cebu would stay in motels and even available hospital rooms so they could attend their conferences. So why is this happening to us?

It is for this reason why the Philippine Hotel Federation, Inc. is sounding the alarm before it’s too late. This is why we support the call of its president Arthur Lopez and we hope that P-Noy would listen to their pleas. At this point, we have not heard of any infighting amongst cabinet members, but an issue of such importance must be discussed in the cabinet level and decisions made, not by just one agency, but the whole cabinet. So now it is time to ask the Aquino Cabinet… is the Philippines really open for business as advertised, or should we kiss our tourism development goodbye?

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