WHILE barging past the government’s goals for the tourism industry this year might be hard without the proper infrastructure in place, an international institute of hospitality management is already gearing up to fill the gap in the tourism services sector as early as now.
There are five components to a good tourism industry, Canadian Tourism and Hospitality Institute (CTHI) founder and owner Sammie Lim said, and these have to be addressed in the near term if the Philippines would like to compete head-on with its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region.
He listed the five ingredients, or the so-called 5As, of tourism, as arrival, access, accommodations, attractions and activities.
“All these five should go hand in hand in order to drive our tourism sector. In the past, it is quite hard to get into the Philippines with only Philippine Airlines monopolizing the aviation sector. Now, we have Cebu Pacific, AirAsia Philippines and AirAsia Zest—arrival to the country is much easier than the past,” he said. However, access to good roads is still a problem.
“The roads must be good, a tourist doesn’t want to spend too much time traveling around because of poor
access,” Lim said.
The former president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and current chairman emeritus of the Philippine Retail Association and Philippine Franchise Association added that sufficient hotel rooms, which are on a par with international standards, should also be in place.
“Accommodations must be predictable. The traveler should know and get what he is paying for,” he said.
Most important, Lim said, is the development of attractions, which is the main reason tourists visit a country.
“We should not compete among ourselves. Our competitors are our neighboring countries. Our beaches should be competing with Bali and Phuket,” he said. “But these need investments from both the government and the private sector.”
“These five—arrival, access, accommodations, attractions and activities—should be on our tourism road map; without one, it will not be successful. Say, for example, you have this nice waterfall, but without roads and hotels, it would be hard to market. You have to get all of them together,” Lim said.
Given that all these are in place, the question on the quality of service now comes to mind.
“Service is now the question. Tourism is an experience; when you get a bad experience, you won’t come back. Experience is given by people, and they must be empowered,” he said. Hence, he established CTHI in the country.
CTHI is the first international franchise of the Canadian Tourism College (CTC) based in Vancouver, Canada. With its 30 years of providing real-world quality tourism education, CTC is now a multiawarded and globally recognized leader in its field.
The school offers intensive on-the-job training through module-based learning for a span of one year that will prepare students for immediate employment in the industry, whether in or out of the Philippines.
“We empower our graduates with the right skill set and teach them how to satisfy our tourists,” he said. “That is how we train our people: showing genuine care for our visitors.”
CTHI has plans to expand its network to over 100 schools in the Philippines and the Asean in 10 years. Its graduates enjoy more than 90- percent employment rate through the training system provided by industry experts, who have no less than five years’ experience in the tourism and hospitality field.