EXECUTIVES of Japan’s travel industry vowed to help the Philippines develop and promote more tourism destinations outside Manila and Cebu.
This was disclosed by the Department of Tourism (DOT) in a news statement issued Thursday from Tokyo, where a 200-man delegation led by Philippines President Rodrigo R. Duterte has been attending various conferences and business meetings with private and government officials of Japan, as well as meet-and-greets with the Filipino community.
Tadashi Shimura, president of the Japanese Association of Travel Agents (Jata) and his colleagues promised to “send 20 travel agencies to the Philippines to meet with local travel agents and explore possible areas of collaboration.“
The DOT added that Jata will also support the country’s advocacy on sustainable tourism.
This developed as Duterte encouraged Japanese businessmen to especially invest in the tourism industry, with the Philippine government targeting foreign inbound tourists to reach 12 million by 2022. “We are receiving a lot of tourists now and soon, some areas might not be able to accommodate you for lack of facilities,” said the President in a meeting with the businessmen on Wednesday. “We suggest for those who are interested to go into business to participate in building resorts for your citizens,” he added.
Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat earlier presented an “economically viable tourism sector teeming with exciting investment opportunities in the areas of accommodation, transportation, leisure and recreation facilities, food and beverage and even infrastructure,” the DOT statement said.
In a parallel event to the 14th Philippine Business Mission (PBM) for tourism held in Japan, Duterte met with leaders of the Japanese travel industry at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. He noted that the tourism and travel sector stand to benefit from government’s “Build, Build, Build” program, which has a number of ongoing transportation infrastructure development projects to achieve seamless travel to and around the archipelago.
Organized by the DOT, the travel industry meeting with the President was an historic occasion, signaling the importance held by Japan as the country’s fourth biggest foreign tourist market.
Earlier on in her term, Romulo Puyat admitted that inbound tourists from Japan have been tepid, necessitating her very first travel overseas as DOT chief to that country last year. Since then, she has visited Japan three more times, appealing to its citizens through Japanese travel agencies to visit the Philippines, On Wednesday, she finally brought Duterte to meet with Jata to convince them to push the Philippines more to their countrymen. (See, “DOT chief brings her ‘Daruma doll’ to boost Japanese arrivals,” in the BusinessMirror, May 29, 2019.)
Arrivals from Japan dropped by almost 2 percent to 177,769 in the first quarter of the year, a turnaround from the 8.98-percent growth in the same period in 2018.
Last year, Japanese tourists grew by 8.15 percent to 631,801, slower though than the 9.14-percent increase in tourists in 2017.
While the DOT chief has acknowledged a problem in the tourism flow from Japan, other tourism officials spin the arrival numbers in a more positive light.
Asked why there seemed to be a sluggishness in the arrivals from Japan, Assistant Secretary and concurrent Tourism Attaché to Tokyo Verna Buensuceso told the BusinessMirror: “Our negative figure was only for January. February and March already registered positive growth.”
She also noted, “Our growth last year is actually higher than the 7.2-percent average growth [in tourist arrivals from Japan] over the past five years.”
Broken down on a monthly basis, however, the data should be a cause for worry. In January 2019, arrivals from Japan were down 16.6 percent to 47,567 from 57,038 in the same month in 2018. In February 2019, Japanese tourists slumped 45.13 percent to 64,365 from 117,300 the year before. In March 2019, the market recovered slightly with Japanese tourists rising just a slight 3.07 percent to 65,837, from 63,878 in March 2018.
The slackening in Japan’s inbound arrivals was also recognized by Jose Clemente III, president of the Tourism Congress of the Philippines since last year. “We’ve received reports from some of our members that they were not getting as many bookings from Japan as before,” he noted. But the stakeholders are also at a loss on the cause of the sluggish market.
Meanwhile, Jata’s Shimura mentioned that under the leadership of Romulo Puyat, there have been focused marketing initiatives in Japan for Philippine tourism. “He noted that in 2018, the 8.15-percent growth rate of Japanese arrivals to the Philippines was higher than the total Japan outbound rate of 6 percent, and thanked the Philippines for supporting efforts to grow the Japanese market further,” said the DOT.
For his part, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade pointed out that the development of new airports and expansion of existing gateways will attract many investment and business opportunities for airline companies and airport operators in Japan.
As of March 2019, international air seats from Japan to the Philippines have reached 3.25 million. The inbound traffic is projected to rise with Philippine Airlines’ introduction of Chitose-Manila thrice weekly flights last December; Japan Airlines’ daily service linking Haneda and Manila since February; and the upcoming flights of Air Asia between Osaka and Manila on July 1; and Cebu Pacific’s Narita-Clark flights beginning August 9.
With the improved airports and seaports, inter-island travel will be easier, more comfortable and with more providers coming in, more affordable, Duterte informed the Japanese businessmen.
The annual PBM is organized by the DOT and its marketing arm, the Tourism Promotions Board, and this year covers Sapporo, Nagoya and Tokyo from May 27-31. Led by Romulo Puyat, this year’s delegation includes 38 companies.