Cebu tourism up 8.5% despite global crisis

Cebu posted an 8.51 percent growth in tourist arrivals despite the drop in key foreign markets at the onset of the global economic crisis last year, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said.

Tourism Undersecretary Phineas Alburo said Cebu drew close to 650,000 tourists out of the 3.13 million tourists that visited the country last year.

He said most of them were traditional visitors like Koreans, Japanese and Americans.

European tourists topped the country's arrivals with Russian tourists comprising 34 percent of the market followed by France with 19 percent and Great Britian with 10 percent.

“DOT’s efforts to diversify and offer new tourist products like adventure, diving and bird watching provided the impetus to stimulate increase in awareness of the country’s tourism potentials,” Alburo told local media at last week's Tourism Congress.

However, Alburo said the global crisis caused a significant drop in foreign tourist arrivals with Korean tourists declining by four percent and Japanese tourists by seven percent.

The number of Chinese tourists likewise dropped at 4.5 percent.

“Either people were losing jobs or people were not sure about their disposable income. In times like this, people tend to travel less far, less long and less expensive. They are staying in their home countries as domestic tourists,” he said.

Alburo said the DOT has shifted marketing efforts towards attracting more domestic tourists through events like the Philippine International Travel Fair (PITF) on June 25 to 27 at the Marco Polo Plaza Cebu.

The PITF is expected to gather 100 buyers worldwide to meet Philippine sellers of tourism packages, products and services.

Another event, the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) Mart on July 10 at Edsa Shangri-La Manila will set up foreign buyers with Philippine suppliers, Alburo said.

“Cautious but optimistic is the attitude of tourism players who believe that people will always travel for pleasure. The key word now is value in terms of what you get, for what you pay and your experience,” said Alburo.

While the H1N1 virus scare will affect tourism performance this year, Alburo said it is important that government is shown doing its best to contain the outbreak.

“What we are after now is image. Wearing masks affect the images because people will immediately react that the disease is not contained. This perception may lead to cancellation (of bookings and other travel plans),” he said.

Source: Cris Evert Lato Cebu Daily News