TOURISM marketing expert Domingo Ramon C. Enerio III has retired from the government after three decades of public service in various capacities addressing the tourism development of the country.
Monday was Enerio’s last day as chief operating officer of the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB), an attached agency of the Department of Tourism (DOT) tasked with marketing the Philippines here and abroad.
In a text message to the BusinessMirror, Enerio confirmed his retirement and said: “Thirty-six years na, time for a change.”
A political science graduate from the University of the Philippines, Enerio had also served the DOT and its attached agencies, such as the Philippine Convention Bureau and Philippine Convention and Visitors Corp. He had also been tourism attaché for London, Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo. In a message he posted on Facebook, Enerio explained his retirement: “I feel it is now the right time for me to move on and explore opportunities in the private sector. While I will, hopefully, not be too far away from the tourism scene, and continue to involve myself in tourism marketing and promotions work, I also look forward to the free time resulting from retirement, and give myself a chance to focus on so-called apostolic duties and chores.”
He added that his departure from TPB “will allow the new leadership to form its own marketing teams that will optimistically propel Philippine tourism to the next level. Toward this end, I encourage all to continue giving your unwavering support and cooperation to the DOT and the TPB, so that the vision of a stronger Philippine economy can be achieved through tourism.”
DOT insiders said Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo has recommended lawyer Falconi V. Millar as COO of the TPB. Millar was legal counsel of the National Association of Independent Travel Agencies Philippines Inc., which Teo had recently headed, before her appointment as Cabinet secretary.
Sources close to President Duterte said, however, there are about 22 other applicants for the TPB COO post. Enerio’s retirement comes at a time just as the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) cut out TPB’s budget for 2017. The TPB is a government-owned and –controlled corporation established under Republic Act (RA) 9353, otherwise known as the Tourism Act of 2009. Under said law, the DBM is supposed to allocate P500 million to the TPB annually. This year, aside from the mandated allocation, the TPB has a P1.64-billion Tourism Promotions Fund, also provided by the law.
Government sources said the DBM didn’t allot any budget for the TPB in 2017 because it will have “a lot of ending balances (i.e., unspent funds) from 2016. The TPB will just have to liquidate these since the DBM hasn’t remitted in full the agency’s allocations anyway.”
The TPB will just have to “bank on the remittances from Duty Free Philippines and from Pagcor [Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.]” to fund its projects in 2017, the same sources added. Under RA 9353, the TPB is entitled to a 25-percent share of 50 percent of what Pagcor remits to the national government.
The TPB has been at the forefront of the “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” brand campaign of the DOT, and has actively participated in major international travel and tourism expos, such as ITB Berlin, the World Travel Market in London. It also helped organize the annual Madrid Fusion Manila, MTV Music Evolution and the recent World Street Food Congress. It implemented the Visit Philippines Year 2015 and the Visit Philippines Again 2016 campaigns, as well as hosted the Asean Tourism Forum 2016.
Under Enerio, the TPB bagged the “Best Marketing and Relationship Effort” award at the 26th Annual TTG Travel Awards in 2015.