The President's Men and Women: DOT chief vows to provide tourism-driven jobs
MANILA, Philippines – No stranger to the tourism industry, Secretary Alberto Lim vows to provide more tourism-driven jobs in the countryside to contribute to the government’s efforts to eradicate poverty.
The new Department of Tourism chief said he accepted President Aquino’s offer to head the DOT to help the new administration accomplish its promise of reducing corruption and poverty.
“At MBC (Makati Business Club), I was an advocate versus corruption so my experience can help. Tourism is an industry that creates jobs especially in the countryside where many of the poor reside,” Lim told The STAR.
Lim was a former executive director of the MBC, an association of top business executives.
“Aside from direct jobs, tourism’s multiplier effects create much bigger impact on the economy,” he said.
Lim, fondly called “Bertie” by friends and colleagues, said the DOT under his leadership would work on the new branding of the Philippines as a country of warm and genial people.
He also cited the need to double efforts to highlight cultural tourism just as much as Philippine beaches are promoted.
“Similarly, we have to hone professional guides,” Lim said.
“When I visited Vietnam recently, a very well-trained guide kept me engaged for two hours while he was explaining the details of a bell. You see, if we have better products and good service, people will come,” the 60-year-old Lim said.
He also plans to double the country’s tourism revenues in six years by attracting high-paying tourists instead of following the mass-market route taken by some of its Southeast Asian neighbors.
“Unbridled tourism is also bad because the environment suffers. So we are very careful about the type of tourism we want. The people who come for culture, history and nature, maybe we can receive them,” he said.
In its 2009 Industry Report, the DOT said total tourist traffic in the country’s top 14 destinations in 2009 reached 8.9 million or 14 percent higher than in 2008.
Last year, the DOT has endorsed 28 new tourism projects worth P36.3 billion with estimated employment capacity of 15,567 once operational, the report said.
Lim said he would streamline the agency’s operations by cost cutting and removing special teams in charge of growing markets.
The DOT chief said much of the agency’s budget would be spent on product development instead of marketing and promotion.
“We need to develop first-rate products and come up with impeccable services to draw more tourists. We have to be more visible by generating very good projects and we should deliver what we promised,” Lim said. He said instead of sending special teams, tourism attachés could promote tourism in the country.
“There are better ways of doing the selling, no need to send teams,” Lim said. “Why send people from Manila when there are already people who are doing that?”
Lim is not new to the tourism industry.
He founded the Palawan Tourism Council, which is responsible for Palawan’s rise as a veritable tourist destination.
He was the former president of Ten Knots Development Corp., owners and managers of El Nido resorts, before he became executive director of the MBC in 2006.
Lim also served as board member of the Civil Aeronautics Board. He co-founded the Freedom to Fly Coalition, which advocated an open-skies policy as a strategy to promote economic development.
Lim was born on Aug. 16, 1949 in Manila. His parents are Luis Hidalgo Lim and Estefania Julian Aldaba.
His father, an engineer, died in a plane accident on March 1, 1962 in Lianga Bay, Surigao del Sur. His mother, a psychologist, died of natural causes on March 7, 2006.
He is married to Carla Campos Abreu, a housewife. They have three children namely Lorenzo, 34; Laszlo, 31 and Liana, 23.
He is the younger brother of veteran broadcast journalist Cheche Lazaro (Cecilia Lim Lazaro).
Lim said he enjoys reading and playing the guitar. He is also an avid tennis player.
Lim has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Ateneo de Manila University. He has also a master’s degree in business administration from the Harvard Business School and another master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government.
Aim for Quality Tourism, says Lim
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines is aiming to double tourism revenues in six years while avoiding the mass-market route taken by some of its Southeast Asian neighbors, the country’s new tourism secretary told AFP.
The archipelago of more than 7,000 islands boasts some of the world’s most beautiful white-sand beaches but annual tourist revenues are a paltry $2.25 billion, Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim said in an interview.
“We want double that, at least,” said Lim, a former high-end resort developer who was appointed to President Aquino’s Cabinet on June 30.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand estimates the country will earn 430 billion baht ($13 billion) from tourism in 2010, but Lim said, “I’m not sure whether I would like to emulate the Thai model.
Revenues
“I would like to go for quality tourism and just make up for the lack of (tourist) numbers in revenues,” he said.
“Unbridled tourism is also bad because the environment suffers. So we are very careful about the type of tourism we want. The people who come for culture, history and nature, maybe we can receive them.”
While insisting that backpackers were still welcome, Lim noted that they did not spend a lot, adding that “they leave waste.”
The timeframe for doubling revenues is the six-year term of Aquino’s presidency.
Just over three million tourists visited the country last year, down 3.9 percent from 2008 as tourism worldwide retreated amid the global financial crisis.
Thai contrast
By contrast, tourist arrivals in Thailand, the industry leader in Southeast Asia, fell only 2.68 percent to 14.15 million last year, according to Thai government data.
Lim said the Philippine tourism industry had terrific potential, despite large areas of the south remaining off-limits to foreigners because of terror groups’ penchant for kidnapping.
He insisted the Philippines had fine-white beach sand superior to anything its neighbors could offer.
“The beaches in the Philippines are better than in Indonesia or Thailand,” he said.
New strategies
There were, however, many areas that needed to be improved to lure the high-paying tourists.
Improving air access and customer service, educating rude and at times dishonest taxi drivers, building good link roads and developing niche markets were some of the new government’s strategies, according to Lim.
“We’ll make them (tourists) stay longer, enjoy the Philippines, and to do this we will have to improve the product that we offer,” he said.
Lim’s first priority is to open up Philippine skies further.
Access
He pointed out that there were three times as many flights between Japan and Thailand as between Japan and the Philippines.
“Access creates investments, investments create hotel facilities and that will also lower prices,” he said.
While government spending for the tourism sector rose during the past nine years of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration, Lim said the money was not targeted well and often rewarded supporters of the government.
“A problem of the past administration was the president, to keep herself in power, had to spread the budget thinly over different areas,” he said, citing instances where airports were built where they were not needed.
English-speaking
Lim singled out nature tourism as one niche sector that, aside from scuba diving, had not fulfilled its potential.
Lim also said that the Philippines should maximize its potential of being an English-speaking nation.
He said the Philippines should be able to attract more medical tourists who would feel comfortable with English-speaking doctors and nurses.
“They (Thailand) may offer better medical service, but people are anxious, right? They want to know what’s happening to them.”
Lim said that, while Filipino tour guides may speak English, they required more training and taxi drivers needed to improve their manners.
“Taxi drivers can speak English but there has to be some courtesy.”
Deteriorating
Few visitors also get to experience the country’s rich cultural heritage since there are not that many museums to put artifacts on display, he said.
“We have so many beautiful artifacts that are sitting in warehouses. It’s really almost criminal that they go to waste, and they are deteriorating. We should get museums in the old style, operating in the old city,” he said.
Attractions like the white-sand beach of Boracay island, meanwhile, are suffering from overdevelopment, and the 3,000-year-old rice terraces carved from the mountainsides of Banaue in the north are crumbling, he said.
Ateneo alumnus takes over Intramuros
Tourism Secretary-designate Alberto Lim has named businessman Jose “Junjun” Capistrano Jr. to replace Anna Marie “Bambi” Harper as administrator of Intramuros.
Capistrano fits the bill of one who would make Intramuros “ truly a heritage site, a destination that Manila needs,” Lim said.
Capistrano, former president of the Ateneo Alumni Association, had served as Intramuros overseer during the term of the then President Cory Aquino but his tenure was cut short when he was named chief of the Philippine Tourism Authority.
As PTA chief, Capistrano helped privatize Fort Ilocandia.
But Lim remained mum on the fate of former Pampanga Governor Mark Lapid as general manager and chief executive of the PTA.
Lapid, son of senator Lito Lapid, was appointed by Arroyo in 2008.
Lim brushed aside allegations that Lapid was being retained in exchange for his father’s support for the administration’s bet in the Senate presidency, Senator Francis Pangilinan.
“He was there for two years already so he was a concession in the last administration or he was capable. I still have to evaluate his performance. It’s very hard to evaluate the performance of the PTA,” Lim said.
Lapid’s fate as PTA head remains uncertain, but that of Harper has been sealed soon after President Aquino has taken office.
Lim described Harper a “very accomplished culturati” but she is co-terminus with former President Arroyo.
Harper triggered controversy in 2008 when she allegedly allowed the cutting of decades-old trees at the Plaza de Roma in front of the Manila Cathedral. The Environment department under then Secretary Joselito Atienza initiated the filing of a case against Harper.
Tourism tops DTI’s 6 priority industries
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Gregory L. Domingo has identified six priority areas – tourism, IT-BPO, electronics, mining, housing and agriculture – that the government should develop and promote because of their strong export potentials and high local value added.
In a speech before the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Domingo said the government needs to prioritize which industries to promote to be able to manage the limited resources effectively.
Domingo’s ranking of industries is also based on each industry’s local value added, growth, export potentials and jobs generation.
“Tourism is the only industry that can provide jobs from unskilled to the executives. Most of what we produce are unskilled jobs, so if I have money I have to put it all on tourism,” he said.
“Tourism is also number one in my list although there is a department of tourism because the Philippines is so rich in tourist resources a lot better than Thailand,” Domingo said.
In fact, Domingo said that as chairman of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority he has already directed the PEZA to find ways on how the government can further support the development of tourism zones.
At present, PEZA has only a few registered tourism economic zones and these are entitled to the same incentives that other export-oriented enterprises are entitled to such as income tax holiday, zero duty on the importation of capital equipment, and a 5 percent tax on gross income in lieu of all taxes after the expiration of the ITH.
Domingo also explained that IT-BPO type of industries came in second in his priority list because it has a high value added of 90 percent.
On the other hand, electronics was ranked third because it has poor value added of only 5 to 10 percent. This means that even if the electronics industry exports $30 billion to $40 billion a year, its local value added is lower than the IT-BPO sector which exports around $8 billion but has a 90 percent local value added.
P-Noy to US, Canada-based Pinoys: Help me
On his first day in office today, President Benigno “P-Noy” Simeon C. Aquino III welcomed to Malacanang some 200 Filipino immigrants from the United States, Guam, Saipan, Canada and Australia and called on them to “help me because there is a lot to be done for the motherland.”
Accompanied by officials of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, the balikbayans assembled at the Heroes Hall, all showing excitement in meeting the President on his first day at the Palace and to congratulate him and express their support for his administration.
In Pilipino, President Aquino told his callers: “I want to thank you all for coming this far and at great expense to wish me well and congratulate me. But I would like to ask your support and to help us with our work for the motherland.”
He then had photo opportunity with the immigrants by batches but this took longer than he wanted it.
Later, he went to the Rizal Hall for the photo sessions with his Cabinet and their families namely: Secretaries Alberto Romulo of the Department of Foreign Affairs; Cesar Purisima of the Department of Finance; Leila de Lima of the Department of Justice; Rogelio Singson, of the Department of Public Works and Highways; Armin Luistro of the Department of Education; Rosalinda Baldoz, Department of Labor and Employment; Gregory Domingo of the Department of Trade and Industry; Paquito Ochoa, Executive Secretary; Dinky Soliman of the Department of Social Welfare; Proceso Alcala, Department of Agriculture; Virgilio de los Reyes of the Department of Agrarian Reform; Alberto Lim of the Department of Tourism; Ramon Jesus, of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources; Enrique Ona, Department of Health; Jose de Jesus of the Department of Transportation and Communication; Mario Montejo, Department of Science and Technology; Florencio Abad, Department of Budget and Management; Rene Almendras, Department of Energy; Edwin Lacierda,Spokesperson; Eduardo de Mesa, Presidential Legal Counsel; Ging Deles, Peace Process and Julia Abad, Presidential Management Staff.