Develop the product, first.
Alice Queblatin, Tourism Congress vice president for travel and tour groups in the Visayas, gave this advice to those who were exploring the possibility of offering cruise packages in Cebu and nearby destinations.
Queblatin said Cebu seaports are not ready to service cruise ships.
“That has always been a dream of the tour operators especially in our country composed of islands, and travel by sea is still considered the best way to travel. Our seaport terminals however is in a very sad state,” she said.
She said the travel and tour operators would not like to offer something that is half-baked.
“Before we offer that, we need to develop the product. The destinations are ready but our seaport infrastructure are not. We don’t even have an international seaport terminal for international cruise ships. We have the seaport but where is the terminal? We even need the Customs set up, somewhere. So really, are we ready?” Queblatin asked.
reaction
Queblatin was reacting to Tourism Congress Committee Chairman Edwin Ortiz’s plan to meet with travel and tour operators to discuss the possibility of this cruise tour packages offering.
Ortiz told Cebu Daily News last Friday that he recognized a point raised by former Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) president Efren Valiente, about the same issues tackled by the Cebu Tourism Congress.
Valiente suggested that the CCCI revisit discussions in the past years and design the next Tourism Congress’s program based on these recurring issues, and focus on them more.
“Initially, the issue that we often hear about is the need for a more efficient airport because it impacts the overall experience of the tourists. What I think can be done is to also explore our seaports while we wait for the improvements of our airport which the national government has already setup under the PPP (private-public partnership) projects,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz said that Cebu has not been attracting much of the cruise ship market which can be developed further through packages that the travel and tour operators group can offer.
“The Philippines being an archipelago has a lot of islands and a cruise ship experience can be another product that we can offer to our tourists,”Ortiz said.
Ortiz said that he also recently learned about a cruise ship that went to Kalanggaman Island, Palompon, Leyte and stayed long which only shows that there is a demand for such a package.
But Queblatin said we still need to bring our seaport terminals to tourist grade level.
While some are offering domestic cruise tours like Cebu to Bohol package, Queblatin said, they ferry their tourists through the fastcrafts like Oceanjet, which has a terminal which is not even at tourist grade level with dirty restrooms.
Queblatin said that they don’t know of shipping companies that offer vessels entirely for tourists with state-of-the-art and very clean facilities.
She admits there is a market for cruise tours and some tourists like Koreans are now traveling to other destinations like Iligan by sea in groups.
“It’s because there’s a different appeal when you travel by sea. The experience is different. Now, we are only offering the road trips to south of Cebu which is picking up,” said Queblatin.
road trips
She said the road trip packages were an offshoot of the Suroy-Suroy Sugbo which allowed them to meet contacts from the different countryside destinations in Cebu and setup partnerships with them for the tours.
“That offering also has a lot of potential and we are now developing more packages to offer to our tourists,” she said.