MANY believe that tourism is the Philippines’ Holy Grail. Tourism is the way out of the doldrums and into the first world. The best trait of the Filipino is our hospitality and tourism is the hospitality business.  Our people are known to give up their own bedroom for guests. Filipinos are the preferred workers on cruise ships around the world because of how we interact with guests on board. From cleaning ladies to  shop keepers, bar tenders and musicians, Filipinos are respected and befriended all over the world because it’s so easy to get along with us. When guests interact with Filipinos, they let their guard down right away. Filipinos are generally soft sell. We don’t push folks into buying something or acting in a particular manner. Visitors don’t feel threatened. A main advantage we have is our ability to speak English. We can’t underestimate this advantage. This limits the “lost in translation” effect.

The Philippines is blessed with some of the most spectacular landscapes and seascapes in the world. Our beaches are top notch. Accommodations are affordable. We have good food and excellent cocktails at very reasonable prices. We have friendly and accommodating hotel staff, who makes visitors truly feel at home. I guess this begs the questions of why? Why aren’t tourists flocking over to our islands like they do to other major tourism destinations in our region like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Phuket?

Security has always been the scapegoat. I’m not buying this excuse since visitors continue to travel to Thailand, notwithstanding the major issues they have had to deal with recently. Even Spain, which attracts tens of millions of tourists a year, has security issues, especially in the northern part of the country.

The main issue is infrastructure and I’m not only talking about airports, roads, trains, and hotels.  Tourists need things to do. They need parks and beaches to visit, malls to shop in, museums to explore, and in Asia, casinos to gamble in. I think you can generally categorize tourists in Asia into two groups, the city goers and the beach bums.

The city goers flock to Hong Kong and Singapore. Hong Kong Disneyland has a capacity of 35,000 people per day and has accommodated over 25 million visitors since it opened only five years ago.  These numbers generate approximately $4.2 million a day in revenues for Hong Kong.  The largest population of visitors to Hong Kong Disneyland is from mainland China. Singapore is projected to surpass Las Vegas in gaming revenues next year. The Lion City attracted 11.6 million visitors in 2010.  Seven million of these tourists came from Asian countries alone. The major attractions in Singapore include Sentosa, Universal Studios, the Singapore Zoo and, of course, the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Casinos.

As for the beach bums, I understand that about four million people visit Phuket, Thailand every year, 2.5 million visit Bali in Indonesia while Langkawi in Malaysia is expected to generated over $6 billion in tourism revenues in 2012. These beach bum tourists come from places outside of Asia. I guess they travel to these destinations to escape the cold weather in their parts of the world.

We need to impr ove the tourism infrastructure for the city goers and the beach bums. Our casinos are now being built but we need to complement this with better parks, playgrounds, museums and shopping malls.

As for the beach bums, Boracay has less than 3,000 rooms available on the island. At 100-percent capacity, it can only accommodate slightly over 2 million tourists a year including the five months of rainy season That is asking for a lot.  Surely we need to develop more destinations, which include marinas, dive spots, fishing and sailing destinations, and other activities that beach bums enjoy.

The challenge for the Philippines should be for tourism revenues to surpass revenues from Overseas Filipino workers (OFW) in US dollar terms.  I figure we need to attract 6 million tourists a year who spend approximately $3,000 to have tourism replace our OFWs as the largest contributor of US dollars to the country. This is a target that definitely is within reach.

With investments in these areas and a focused marketing and advertising campaign, the Philippines can be the tourism leader in Southeast Asia.

(The author is the investment director for equity portfolio management for ATR KimEng Asset Management and chairman of its investment committee. For comments, you may e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)