Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez Jr. underscored the critical role telecommunications companies (telcos) play in helping promote tourism in the country.
Telcos should continue pushing for more technologies and make them available for Filipinos all over the world as this will benefit the tourism industry of the country, said Jimenez in his speech during last Tuesday’s opening of the 18th Asian Carriers Conference (ACC 2012) at the Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa.
“The telcos through the technology they offer have significant impact on how our country is regarded globally, Jimenez said.
He said the technologies and ideas coming out of this convention would have concrete effects in the Philippine communication and tourism.
MICE
Jimenez also cited the importance of attracting more events that gather people from all over the region or the world in a convention held anywhere in the country because of the income it could generate.
“Events such as the ACC 2012 is classified under MICE or meetings, incentives, conventions and expositions which earns 16 times more than what we can earn from the regular and traditional tourism,” he said.
“Theoretically, if we have 10 million tourists and increase our MICE tourists by 300 percent by 2016 we would have earned an income equivalent to about 18 million tourists.”
He said he was confident that the country could be at the top of the list as a best destination for MICE events.
“In the 1970s, the Philippines was considered the most important MICE destination and the PICC (Philippine International Convention Center) was the most coveted convention center in the world. Is it doable? Absolutely!” he said.
Jimenez however cited the disparity of spaces for MICE in the Philippines and its competitors.
The Philippines today has only about 23,000 square meters of space for MICE events in Manila and Cebu compared to the country’s competitors in the region.
He cited Singapore which has 180,000 square meters of space for MICE and Thailand with close to 200,000 square meters of space for these events.
“We have a lot of catching up to do and that is why we need the help of the telecommunication companies to better promote ourselves to our target market,”he said.
PARTNER
He also revealed plans to continue partnering with local telecommunications companies to promote and encourage the tourists to visit the country.
“We can come up with promos like a package deal when they purchase something in Duty Free, Jimenez said.
“Actually there are countless ways that we can help each other especially that the countries that they are looking at are also countries that are important to us (DOT).”
He was referring to PLDT’s plan to offer their services and their products to 10 million overseas Filipinos in countries around the world (See related story.)
The Tourism department has tie-ups with PLDT and Smart for domestic tourism promotions.
In Cebu, Smart has worked with DOT for a project called Smart Cebu which uses QR (Quick Response), codes placed in the different historical landmark destinations in Cebu.
This project will give tourists access to information of the heritage site through QR code scanning applications in their smartphones and tablets.
The project was launched in December 20, 2011 and is undergoing more improvements on information linked in the codes for every landmark.