Travel season

It’s peak travel season, and our pristine beaches, breathtaking diving sites, mountain caves and rice terraces beckon.

It’s also peak travel season in the rest of the region – the best time to enjoy the tropical summer for those emerging from the extreme winter in the northern hemisphere.

In recent years, Philippine travel destinations have been attracting global attention and winning accolades, particularly Boracay and the whale shark playgrounds.

Last year also saw an increase in tourist arrivals to 4.83 million from 4.68 million in 2013. Good enough, but still a long way from the 10-million goal for 2016.

The 4.83 million is also way below the numbers attracted by our neighbors, several of which offer similar attractions of tropical sun, sand and glimmering sea.

Records show that in 2014, Southeast Asia’s top travel destination was Malaysia, with an enviable 27.437 million international visitors despite two tragic plane crashes involving its flag carrier. This year, the country ranked by the World Tourism Organization as the 10th most visited in 2012 is aiming for 29.4 million visitors.

Thailand came second with 24.779 million visitors in 2014. Due to political turbulence, this was down from the 26.546 in 2013 when Thai capital Bangkok ranked second in the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index, behind only London and ahead of Paris.

Singapore ranked fourth in that index. The tiny city-state was the second top travel destination in Southeast Asia last year, with 15.1 million visitors, although this was a slump from the 15.6 million in 2013.

Vietnam also beat us, getting 7.874 million visitors last year – up from 4.68 million in 2013. Cambodia, with its majestic ancient temples, and which has turned even its grisly killing fields into a tourism package, was close behind us with 4.502 million visitors.

Myanmar, newly opened to the world, has seen its international visitors increase steadily from about 791,000 in 2010 to 2.04 million in 2013. If it sustains that growth rate, it might overtake us.

As tourism chief, marketing expert Ramon Jimenez has done a good job of selling the Philippines’ attractions to the world. But tourism, as I have written in the past, needs a national conductor; the secretary of tourism can only do so much.

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Within Southeast Asia, the biggest international visitors are the Chinese, whose growing incomes are feeding their travel bug. In 2014, Chinese accounted for the largest number of arrivals in Thailand with 4.623 million. Malaysia drew 1.6 million Chinese visitors. Singapore drew 2.269 million Chinese in 2013, but saw a hefty drop of 24 percent in that market last year.

Vietnam, despite its territorial feuding with Beijing, attracted 1.9 million Chinese visitors in 2014. The Philippines drew 394,951 travelers from China and 142,973 from Taiwan.

Our neighbors also get more travelers from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Predominantly Muslim Malaysia and Indonesia draw tourists from Islamic countries.

I’ve asked numerous diplomats and foreign investors from those other regions as well as their citizens when I visit their countries why they skip the Philippines when they go to Southeast Asia.

The most common answer – despite the success of the “more fun in the Philippines” campaign – is low awareness of our country. Our tourism marketing budget is simply no match for those of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia.

In terms of awareness, some of our neighbors also benefit from colonial ties: Malaysia and Singapore (and now Myanmar) to Britain, Indonesia to the Netherlands, and Vietnam to France. We get the US market, though it should be bigger: the 722,750 American tourists last year came second to the 1.175 million visitors from South Korea.

Our colonial ties with Spain aren’t being sufficiently tapped. Spain’s Ambassador Luis Calvo told me that his compatriots like traveling and still remember their shared history with the Philippines. But when Spaniards go to Southeast Asia, they go to Thailand and neighboring countries and skip the Philippines.

Why? One reason is that we’re outside the main Southeast Asian grouping. Once travelers are done hopping around Bangkok and Phuket, Hanoi, Siem Reap, Bali and Singapore, they’re ready to go home.

Ambassador Calvo cited the second most common answer to the question on why foreigners don’t proceed to the Philippines: the lack of air connectivity. Taking another three-hour flight from the Southeast Asian main island grouping to the Philippines, with all the additional costs and waiting time, can be a burden, he said, especially if travelers still have to take a connecting flight from Manila to their final destination.

We should make the most of our growing direct flights to various destinations in Canada. Ambassador Neil Reeder told me that we are the only Southeast Asian nation with direct flights to his country, several times a week, with the Philippine Airlines flight to New York the latest addition. Yet last year we drew only 143,899 visitors from Canada.

The lack of direct flights to secondary airports is a common complaint for those going to Boracay. Chinese travelers have lamented to me that they waste an entire day just going to the island from Manila. Getting there may be half the fun, but they prefer the beach, not the travel, and want to maximize their office or school leaves.

The Koreans arranged direct flights from Seoul to Boracay, mostly on their carrier, several years ago, which probably contributes to the fact that they have accounted for the largest number of foreign visitors in the Philippines for the past years.

Even Korean arrivals, however, are threatened by a third common concern raised by international travelers: peace and order. And I’m not referring to the conflict zones of Mindanao, which are not tourist destinations (although they can be).

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Philippine security authorities have reportedly reassured Korean officials of the safety of their citizens visiting our country, following a string of murders, kidnappings, muggings, and extortion and harassment by various agencies. Only time will tell if the Koreans will feel sufficiently safe.

Ambassador Calvo said another problem in bringing more tourists here from Spain is the inadequacy of land transportation, hotel accommodations and other tourism infrastructure even in certain top travel destinations.

Like the upgrading of secondary airports, however, efforts to attract more investments in tourism infrastructure are moving at teka-teka pace, and will just have to wait until the next administration.

Approximately 1.138 billion people traveled outside their country in 2014, contributing trillions of dollars to the global economy. We have some of the best destinations on the planet, and more can be done to get the world to visit.