BALI, Indonesia – My five-day stay in Bali has once again clearly shown how far we have been left behind by our Southeast Asian neighbor Indonesia in the tourism sector.
The busloads of tourists in the island paradise of Bali coming from all parts of the world seem endless.
This, however, does not mean that our natural attractions cannot compete with or at par with the best in Indonesia or for that matter the rest of the region.
It therefore begs the question: What are they doing right that make them successful when we claim that we have more and better natural attractions?
Take for example our Ifugao Rice Terraces, which I personally hiked last February, juxtaposed with a similar UNESCO World Heritage Site counterpart in Indonesia, the Tegallalang Rice Terraces, a short drive up from Ubud, which I trekked last Saturday.
Our Ifugao Rice Terraces would have won hands down by a mile. The scenery of green landscape is simply breathtaking – it seems boundless monumental stairways to heaven. Tegallalang appears smaller in scale. Talk about expectation vs reality.
Simply, we have the wow factor.
President Gloria Arroyo’s Tourism Secretary Richard Gordon is right after all with his tourism branding campaign of Wow Philippines.
Nonetheless, the wow factor is not enough as the numbers speak differently.
Foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia last year reached 11.68 million, according to their local government statistics. Ours is 5.45 million during the same period. Our baseline target for 2024 of international visitor arrivals is 7.7 million is nowhere near Indonesia’s 11.68 million accomplishment of 2023.
What spells the difference: Better tourism experience.
The Philippines has acknowledged the situation and has adopted a whole-of-nation approach to help realize the vision of the Marcos Jr Administration of transforming the Philippines into the “tourism powerhouse of Asia.”
For one, the current government has put premium on quality tourism infrastructure with the Department of Tourism in close collaboration with the Department of Public Works and Highway for the construction of tourism roads and the Department of Transportation for the enhancement of the country’s gateways, which I earlier discussed in last week’s column (See, Gateway to the World, 07 June 2024).
How to reach tourist destination A, and from there how to connect to tourist destination B at a lower cost?
Connectivity, convenience and equality are indeed the keys.
But before we go to those points, let us start with the basics: Have clean toilets with running water in our establishments.
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Dennis Ting is a former director at the Department of Budget and Management.
