Editor’s Eye by Baz Daniel
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
On May 12 Philippine President Arroyo signed into law the National Tourism Policy Act of 2009, which is designed to give the Department of Tourism (DOT) the authority and policy it needs in order to turn the huge island group into a world-class destination. The Tourism Act of 2009 declares a ‘national policy for tourism as an engine of investment, employment, growth and national development’. The new law empowers the DOT to strengthen the different agencies attached to it, so that they can more efficiently and effectively coordinate the functions and resources of government for tourism promotions and development programmes, as well as eliminate the overlapping of functions.
The new Act’s main author, Senator Richard Gordon has been calling on Filipinos with an entrepreneurial bent to identify places in their home provinces that can be developed and promoted as tourism destinations. Then they will be able, working with their local government and tourism officials, to prepare their area for development as tourist spots, with appropriate government budget being directed to support them.
The Philippine’s new act can well be seen as a paradigm for most of the developing tourism markets in Asia in these extremely challenging economic times. On the one hand, tourism has the ability to quickly create thousands of jobs and bring economic benefits to hitherto impoverished and undeveloped areas of in-bound tourist markets. But the price to be paid for too rapid and unregulated development is social and environmental blight, several examples of which can be seen around the region.
It’s always a tricky balancing act to pull off, but in stressed economic times, it becomes all the more challenging. One facet working against the challenge of achieving balance, is the fact that government tourism department’s are often charged with delivering head count and revenue maximisation from tourists arrivals, but have no power to mandate best practice, or even good practice, in cultural, social and environmental behaviour within the tourism sector.
The result, as we are all well aware, is a damaging mind set of “short term-ism” and dollar-grabbing expediency.
Tourism department’s need to be evaluated, regulated, and their officers compensated, on sustainable results over the long term, but most experience rapidly revolving doors in their senior staffing, as governments change and policies evolve to meet vested political interests and powerful funding groups.
Perhaps an international “super” management body is the answer, reporting to the United Nations and the World Bank, but that would lead to charges of cultural imperialism and insensitivity to within-country needs.
It’s a perplexing conundrum that faces most countries in Asia right now and we can be sure that developments in the Philippines will be closely watched over the coming years to see what they can achieve from their bold step forward and what
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