Tourism promotion

The tourism secretary was bashed over the year-end for having her glamorous photo on the cover of a magazine at a time when she has dismally failed in her job of promoting our tourism industry.

- BOO CHANCO

That the magazine is privately owned misses the point. That it is owned by an advertising firm leads to suspicion the cover could be a quid-pro-quo for a share of the tourism department's promotions budget. She should have refused and asked them to feature one of our many tourism spots that are infinitely more photogenic than her.

We are expected to record only 5.6 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2025 or just about as much as 2024’s. That falls short of the 8.4 million target the fiasco-plagued DOT proudly announced at the beginning of 2025.

The DOT folks obviously don’t know what they are doing. Before making bold targets, any professional marketing person would make sure it is attainable and that they will not embarrass their principal if they fail.

It is easy to make an ambitious target by picking a number from thin air. But it doesn’t work. It takes competence to make sure the target is met.

If the folks at DOT were working for a private marketing company, they would all be fired by now. Unfortunately, incompetent bureaucrats have civil service protection.

They have a tough job, no doubt about that. Our tourism sector had never been competitive, not on price, not on ease of moving around and not on the national image of prevalent corruption and iffy peace and order.

That’s why I have always been saying that DOT should first work on the basics. First on the list, let our prices be competitive. Price is the first consideration most people have before deciding where to go.

My Singapore-based son is a Hyatt loyalist and he told me the Hyatt rate in Manila is a lot higher than what we paid in Kuala Lumpur over the holidays.