Why do we want tourism?

Cebu Business Month, an annual June affair of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will focus again on tourism this year. A tourism congress will highlight the month-long event. What do we know about and what benefits can we get if we promote tourism in Cebu?

The United Nations World Tourism Organizations (UNWTO) reported that global tourism peaked in 2008 when the number of inbound tourists reached 916 million with a total of $940 billion in tourism receipts generated. With the last Great Recession, the number of inbound tourists went down in the following year by 3.8 percent to 881 million.Tourism receipts also fell by 9.5 percent. It recovered in 2010 with a 6.7-percent increase in inbound tourists and 9.0-percent increase in tourism receipts.

Like many emerging economies, the Philippines is eyeing tourism as one of its growth drivers to meet the demand for more jobs for its fast growing labor force and to reduce its high incidence of poverty. The country’s inbound tourists peaked at 3.14 million in 2008 but went down to 3.02 in 2009 as a result of the last Great Recession. As the global economy recovered in 2010, however, the country’s inbound tourists jumped up by 16.2 percent to 3.52 million. This went up further by 11.3 percent to 3.92 million in 2011. The recently completed National Tourism Roadmap aims to get 10 million foreign tourists by 2016, about 10.2 percent of the inbound tourist projected for Southeast Asia.

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) said that tourism has significant direct as well as indirect and induced impacts. The direct contribution of travel and tourism to GDP reflects the internal spending on it by residents and non-residents for business and leisure purposes as well as government individual spending on travel and tourism services directly linked to visitors. The indirect contribution includes the real output produced and jobs supported by travel and tourism investment spending. The induced contribution measures the real output produced and jobs supported by the spending of those who are directly or indirectly employed by the industry.

The WTTC estimated the direct contribution of travel and tourism to the Philippines’ 2011 Gross Domestic Product at P194.7 billion which was equivalent to 2.0 percent of the country’s GDP. This primarily reflects economic activity generated by industries such as hotels, travel agents, airlines and other passenger transportation services (excluding commuter services), including activities of the restaurant and leisure industries.Overall, the WTTC estimated the total contribution of travel and tourism to our GDP, including wider effects from investment, the supply chain and induced income impacts at P830.8 billion in 2011 (8.5 percent of GDP).

Travel and tourism generated 778,000 jobs directly in 2011 (2.1 percent of total employment), according to WTTC. This includes employment by hotels, travel agents, airlines and other passenger transportation services (excluding commuter services). It also includes, for example, the activities of the restaurant and leisure industries directly supported by tourists. Overall, the total contribution of travel and tourism to Philippine employment, including wider effects from investment, the supply chain and induced income impacts, was 3,547,500 jobs in 2011 (9.6 percent of total employment).

We also want tourism in Cebu whose economy has dual characteristics. It is a highly urbanized and modern enclave in the central eastern part of the island that comprises Metro Cebu. The rest of Cebu is rural with its people depending mostly on sustenance fishing, farming and small-scale business for livelihood.

Metro Cebu is a fast-growing enclave, with a rapidly changing landscape and dynamic economy. The rural areas beyond its confines, however, remain almost unaffected by development. This dualism led naturally to the movement of many people from rural areas to Metro Cebu in search of a good life. The good life is not necessarily attained by many rural migrants who are unprepared to meet the requirements of a modern economy. After coming to Metro Cebu, many of them just become the new urban poor.

Clearly, Cebu needs to find a new source of employment to absorb people with very few skills and education like what many business establishments engaged in tourism provide. The question is: Do we have roadmap on how to develop tourism in Cebu?

There is none at the moment but we will have one soon hopefully once the Technical Working Group (TWG) of the coalition of business chambers and CSOs in Cebu complete its work. The coalition is led by the Cebu Business Club and the REID Foundation under the coalition’s Partnership for Better Infrastructure Program.

The Cebu Tourism Roadmap will translate the National Tourism Roadmap into more actionable local proposals with due consideration of existing local development plans and consultation with key stakeholders in tourism in Cebu.