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BAGUIO CITY—Count
the fingers of each hand as a memory tip for the magic
formula that earned the country $4.89 billion from tourism
in 2007.
It’s
called the Five 5s through the 5As.
But the
simplicity ends with the childlike game of counting
fingers. Five 5s and 5As is a complex chain of strategies
based on serious analysis and lessons learned from global
trends crafted to attain a quantum leap in tourism gains.
Over the
weekend, the president of the Philippine Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (PCCI), Samie Lim, was guest speaker
in a Tourism Business Forum here to help the city gain its
tourism vitality, faded over the years by urban decadence
and competitive tourist destinations elsewhere.
Time was
when Baguio’s sunny mornings and misty afternoons lured
honeymooners and lovers here.
At 5,000
feet above sea level, it is the coolest city in the
country and its lofty pine trees and evergreen scented air
provide a refreshing respite from lowland heat and
pollution.
But Lim
says that today only its mountainous terrain reminds us
that once this was the glorious Summer Capital of the
Philippines and the only American Hill Station in Asia.
The once green spaces are now covered with shanties,
changing blue mountainscapes into sheets of rusted tin
roofing.
The chief
of the Department of Tourism for the Cordillera region,
Purificacion Molintas, asked Lim how
Baguio
and the Cordillera region can fit into the PCCI tourism
master plan and regain its vibrancy in the past.
The Five
5s through the 5As
Lim’s
answer simply was the Five 5s and the 5As. It’s all about
goal-setting and creating the environment to achieve them.
Lim said
that for 25 years, tourism arrivals in the Philippines
played around the 2-million figure, never going beyond.
Breaking
what he called Pinoy skepticism, Lim said the PCCI aimed
for 5 million international tourists in five years, making
up two of the Five 5s in the magic formula.
International tourism arrival last year was 898 million
tourists, an increase of 6 percent from the previous year.
Asia-Pacific came second to Europe, which had the highest
percentage of increase in tourism.
Of the
Asia-Pacific countries, Malaysia (20.88 million tourist
arrivals) topped the list in tourism and the Philippines
was fifth, falling below Vietnam, even though it
impressively moved above its 2-million standstill to 3.09
million. But
Vietnam
three years ago was only ahead of 300,000 of the
Philippines,
and that’s bad news, Lim said.
By 2010
tourist arrivals is projected at over a billion and the
5-million target of the PCCI would only represent half of
1 percent of this projection. Looking at it this way, 5
million was not indomitable.
The task
began with another of the Five 5s, which was to raise a
$5-billion investment from its chapters and to promote
what they called the sunrise industry. The target set
would provide 5 million jobs, and a goal of $5 billion in
tourism revenues completes the Five 5s.
The 5As
Just where
the $5-billion investment will go is the maze that every
tourism program must keep in order to survive. It’s a
chain that cannot be broken, says Lim, as he explains that
it follows the nature or mannerisms of a regular or
business tourist.
Arrival,
Access, Accomodation, Attractions and Activities make up
the 5As for success.
Arrival
and access
“Baguio
has to accept that its Loakan airport can never be an
international airport. A tourist or a businessman wants a
flight that must take off, not one that might fly,” he
said. Because of the unpredictable foggy conditions of
Baguio, scheduled flights can be canceled anytime.
He advised
instead a link-up with Poro Point airport, stressing the
boom enjoyed now by budget flights and chartered planes.
Lim presented data that showed 59 percent of those who
traveled in the last three years only did so because
budget flights were affordable. Another 37 percent shifted
from regular flights to budget flights.
Every
country has chartered flights today, Lim said. The Laoag
airport claims to be the second-busiest airport next to
Manila due to cheap chartered flights taken by domestic
help from
Hong Kong for quick weekend visits to families. Lim pointed out that
Korean weekend golfers have also kept the Laoag airport
busy.
“Take
advantage of the fact that
Northern Luzon is nearer to
North
Asia, where the rich and the bigger spenders are—China,
Japan, Korea, Taiwan,” he advised his audience.
“Package,
too, your attractions with the coastal towns of Pangasinan,
normally just an hour’s drive from the city. People may
want to see mountain and sea in one trip,” he said.
The
strategy behind it is that cruises and ferries should be
the next best thing the country must venture into, with
its more than 7,000 islands to explore. “There should be
more Aboitizes in this country, which is the only ferry or
cruise making money bringing people to Hundred Islands.”
Tourists
arrive tired and will want to get where they need to go in
45 minutes, an hour at the most. Except for backpackers,
where the thrill begins with the trek, the attractions
offered by the Cordillera landscape are accessible only
through long hours of travel on bumpy roads, a turn-off
for many tourists.
Air or
helicopter taxis, now the hottest thing in Singapore,
should then be an option. Air taxis can pick up travelers
from Poro Point and bring them anywhere within a radius of
45 minutes, he said. There is now a Mount Pinatubo air
taxi, which costs P4,000 for a three-seater plane. Omni
Airlines also offers air-taxi charters anywhere in Luzon,
including Baguio and Banawe.
Accommodation and activities
Numbers
are misleading, Lim warned, because the kind of tourists
and their length of stay are what makes the money roll.
A new mode
of accommodation is proving to be bringing in foreign
travelers because of its convenience and low cost. The
Accor, a European group with 4,000 hotels around the
world, shows its biggest mass of clients among the budget
group, choosing its Hotel Formule 1 accommodation. “There
is a vending machine as you enter the hotel which accepts
a credit card and three buttons to press for a choice of
one-, two- or three-night stays and a key comes out. Accor
came up with the concept after it had done a survey which
showed that only three things were important for
travelers—a good bed, hygiene [clean sheets and toilet],
and quiet.” Something for
Baguio
to think about.
Realizing
that it is not enough for the city to sit on its laurels
as the Summer Capital of the Philippines, with much of its
uniqueness gone and its environment homogenized with the
likes of McDonald’s and SM chains, the city is promoting
it also as a wedding haven. Lim said there can be a plan
which he will help promote for the ukay-ukay to be
a more classy activity, and not a shopping experience
tinged, for some people, with shame.
Lim also
offered to bring in sponsors like Kodak to develop Burnham
Park. Like Vancouver, where people come to see the roses,
Burnham Park can once more blossom with flowers like the
old days.
Lim
thinks medical tourism and retirement should be a big item
on the tourism road map of
Baguio. “The spa business alone is now a $25-billion annual earner,
when it was just worth $5 billion eight years ago. And
retirement is estimated to bring in 4 million jobs and $44
billion worldwide.”
How much
of that will go to your restaurants, hotels, tour guides,
etc., he dared his audience to ponder.
Baguio’s
tourism can take confidence in what the PCCI has achieved.
In 2007, just three years after the magic formula came
into play, there was $5.6 billion in investment; 3.54
million jobs; 3.09 million international tourists and an
annual revenue of $4.89 million. And it all began with a
wispy dream to get bigger and better. | 
