ASEAN integration: Are we ready?

Transforming the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) into one ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by the end of year 2015 is imminent.  It simply means freer trade of both goods and services among the ASEAN countries.  Consequently, we shall be among an economic market of about 600 million people or about 8 percent of the global population.  In preparing for it, countries like Singapore will have approaches totally different from ours.  Undoubtedly though, each country's ability to generate foreign direct investments (FDIs) and lure tourism industry players will be brought to fore.

In us, as far as these FDIs and tourism initiatives are concerned, it would seem an uphill climb.  For one, in the ASEAN right now, Singapore is cornering the biggest chunk of FDIs and Malaysia has consistently grab a lion share of the tourism pie.  Secondly, our government's unbending stance as far as amending some economic provisions of the constitution as well as the removal of some restrictions in the Foreign Investments Negative List (FINL) have made us the least preferred destination of FDIs.

Some may argue though that tourism can be a good lead.  Well, it's a given, almost all local government units (LGUs) annually hold festivals.  However, these LGUs have reaped, so far, only a day's or, at the most, a week's bounty each year.  Some LGUs though have plans to do the uncommon.  Cebu, for one, apart from the usual sights, traditional activities and countless festivals, is also starting to position itself as having the capabilities for medical tourism and sports tourism.  However, while we are too optimistic about their prospects due to our relative success in traditional tourism, it seems that we did not realize that medical tourism and sports tourism are totally different from the rest.  The medical tourism, for instance, is not a tour or travel for predominantly recreational or leisure purposes but out of necessity.  Mindfully, it is not a kind tourism where even a commercial sex worker can get involve.  It needs huge investments in hospital equipment and the best in our already depleted number of health practitioners.

Yes, it is true that medical tourism is growing rapidly. However, there are many factors that led to the increasing prominence of medical travel and not all success ingredients in traditional tourism can be counted upon.  Principally, the reasons run from high cost of their countries' health care to longer waiting times for certain treatments or procedures.  Coupled with the ease and affordability of international travel and the vastly improved technology and health care standards in other countries, medical travel has been viewed as truly the sunny side of tourism.   True, medical tourists are coming from anywhere in the globe.  They are coming from the wealthy nations in Europe, Middle East, Japan, the United States and Canada.  These are countries with relatively large moneyed populations and have high cost of health care.   However, just because there is a huge market is not enough reason for us to join the bandwagon.  A huge potential market doesn't assure us of success.  This potential market is knowledgeable enough to know where to get treatment.  Without doing an honest assessment of our real worth or capabilities, we will only end up salivating while staring at a huge market that we can't tap.

On the other hand, sports tourism has a different emphasis.  It is not enough that we have great fighters and world class stables  of boxers.  If this is a requisite, then, Las Vegas, Nevada will never become a home of great fights and bankable sports tourism because it only has one notable world boxing champion, Floyd Mayweather (not even a native Las Vegan).  Yes, sports, as a form of entertainment, could have been better than concerts because of pride and patriotism that is attached to it.  However, like concerts, we need big-time and well-oiled promoters who can willingly put their money on the line.  We need the likes of Bob Arum, Oscar de la Hoya, Gary Shaw, etc. to see the dream fights go.  Do we have them in our midst? Even if they are, they will only do so if they profit from it.  To make certain, they would like to see those amusement taxes gone or, at least, brought down almost to the ground.  Moreover, we must also realize that not having amusement taxes does not necessarily lead to more productions of big events at all. If the intention really is to promote sports tourism and have more opportunities to see international sports spectacles, we need to have at least one comfortable venue not an oven-hot coliseum. Seeing this realized, we can expect patronage not just among Filipinos but foreign visitors as well.  Consequently, we can expect higher hotel occupancy rate and boost tourism.  Ironically, however, despite these basic but unattended concerns, we brag about the potentials of our medical tourism and sports tourism capabilities.

Therefore, in asking whether we are ready for the ASEAN Economic Community by 2015, momentarily, the answer is an absolute no.

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