Recently, the Department of Tourism highlighted the importance of community engagement in its push for tourism to attain global branding.
Tourism Development Planning Division Chief Mr. Warner Andrada said that encouraging people to be proud of their local destinations will lead to more visitors. “The destination becomes attractive because of the people,” he said at the recently held Metro Manila Tourism Forum in Parañaque City on August 30. “A community that has pride in itself will appear welcoming and attract visitation.”
Customer service
Citing a tourism survey conducted in Victoria, Canada, Andrada noted how 70 percent of visitors who had extended their stay in a region was a direct result of conversations with Visitor Center Staff.
“To understand the visitor needs, Customer Service is inextricably linked to visitors’ experiences,” he told before a hundred tourism stakeholders. “The service you provide becomes an integral part of the visitors’ overall travel experiences. Bad customer service cannot be recalled or replaced.”
Andrada called on tourism practitioners, both in private and public organizations, to act not for self-interest but rather work interdependently.
He said tourism practitioners recognize the influence of others on organizational activities and appreciate that their actions have an impact on others. With this, a destination’s success is attained through the stakeholder’s interconnection.
In the local setting, Andrada noted the presence of the Tourism Congress, a private-sector consultative body created under Republic Act 9593, which is composed of duly accredited tourism enterprises covering services, MICE facilities, and other accredited tourism enterprises.
This body assists government in the development, implementation and coordination of Philippine tourism policy.
Preserving culture
One of the speakers, Jason Lusk, chief executive of the Clickable Vietnam marketing agency, shared that, while there are many opportunities in tourism, it also creates conditions of exploitation.
He said, “Where there is money to be paid, there will always be somebody willing to break someone’s bones. And there is somebody willing to have his bones broken. People are enticed to sell tracks of land for a five-star resort [to be built on], or fragile, centuries-old traditional items [to] become [part of] exhibits.
He also takes Vietnam’s booming tourism as an example of welcoming opportunities while successfully preserving culture and community.
A leader in marketing Vietnam to the world, Lusk said that, while Hanoi welcomes high-rise constructions and investors to the city, the old ways are still evidently present.
Sprawled within the busy streets of Vietnam’s capital city are preserved colonial architectures, traders selling fruits and vegetables, cultural shows and residents washing their clothes in front of their apartments.
“For all the bones that it breaks, tourism pays a few hundred dollars for the communities who host it,” he said.
Lusk added that, “to maximize the good and minimize the bad” in tourism, there must be proper regulation and planning, the absence of exploitation among minorities and management and preservation schemes of architectural structures.
Online presence
Lusk also encouraged small tour operators to consider linking their products to online marketplaces, a potential tourism booster in the offing.
In 2015 only 7 percent of travelers booked through online. They preferred booking through agents, hotel concierge or on the spot. However, in the next five years, Lusk said the projected growth of visitors booking tour activities online may increase as much as 15 percent.
Lusk noted that this area magnifies the complications for small tour activity operators because they need to forge this relationship with resellers.
“There is a wealth of marketplaces that are popping around in the world,” he said. “Community-based tour and activity operators should encourage these marketplaces to come to their destination, discover their products, and include their products in their inventory.” By doing this, Lusk added that community-based tours are given opportunities to innovate.
“We are giving community members a way to make money and celebrate their cultures. We’re not just letting you choose which bones are to be broken, we are giving them better alternatives.”