A look at Gordon’s tourism bill
INSIDE CEBU By Bobit S. Avila, The Philippine Star
Our good friend Sen. Richard "Dick" Gordon is quite visible these days selling his latest tourism idea through a proposition called the Senate Bill No. 2138, otherwise known as the "Tourism Act of 2005".
Honestly, I don’t know if this proposal is an amendment of previous laws on tourism or whether this is entirely a new bill. But nonetheless, President Arroyo has certified that Gordon’s bill should be considered "urgent" and therefore a priority bill of her administration.
Gordon is proposing to create Tourism Philippines, a corporation combining the functions of the Philippine Convention and Visitors Corp. (PCVC) and the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA), which would also include the promotions and marketing departments of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). This is purportedly to strengthen the tourism industry.
But before I could get the comments of the members of the Hotel, Resorts and Restaurants Association of Cebu (HRRAC) on this proposed bill, another group called the National Association of Independent Travel Agencies (Naitas) chaired by Bobby Joseph called a press conference last Wednesday to object to the proposal, citing that "the majority of the tourism stakeholders, those who will be directly affected by the measure, were never consulted when the bills were considered in the Senate and the House of Representatives."
One key objection is the collection of a tourism fee of $5 per day/night on top of the rack rates for all hotels. I don’t know the thoughts of Gordon on this but certainly the tourists paying top dollar at the Mactan Island Shangri-la Resort or Plantation Bay wouldn’t mind paying that fee but to a downtown hotel that sounds pretty steep. They could end up losing clients altogether.
Perhaps next week, the HRRAC would have their own comments on this bill, not to mention those coming from the Hotel and Restaurant Association of the Philippines (HRAP).
I reckon that Gordon just has to respond to the objections. After all, as Mrs. Arroyo promised when she took her oath of office her administration will be a government of consultation and Cebu will be a major tourism hub, the backbone of the government’s effort to improve tourism industry.
We’re not saying that Gordon doesn’t know the problems of tourism in this country. Of course he does, but that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t consult with the people in the industry who would be affected by his tourism bill. He should!
I was just browsing through the proposal and yes, it calls for a huge reorganization of the present inutile set up in the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the agencies handling tourism.
Gordon is right when he says, "At present, there are three lead agencies in tourism — the DOT, the PTA and the PCVC. But they don’t have clear functions, mandates and powers. All three are involved in promotions.
DOT and PTA and local governments are involved in tourism development. There’s not enough money to go around as it is, yet we still have to divide it into three. PTA was supposed to develop tourism zones. Did it do that? No, instead it went into business, but all its businesses are losing money. And to think, it receives P500 million a year from travel taxes, and they have nothing to show for it. For PCVC, when it was established in 1981, Manila was the number one center for international conventions in Asia, and number eight in the world. But because PCVC never got the money to promote the Philippines, we just disappeared from the radar.
The bill proposes that DOT should focus on drafting regulations in cooperation with the private sector. The PTA will be reorganized into the Tourism Enterprise Zone Authority to develop tourism zones together with the private sector, and PTA’s businesses will be spun off or liquidated. PCVC will be reorganized into a joint public and private sector effort that will get the money it needs to promote the Philippines.
I do not doubt the noble goal that Sen. Gordon has set for the tourism industry and I know that after reading this column, I’m going to get a call from Dick. So early on, let me say that his proposal has good points, which should be magnified but there are certainly some objectionable points, which need to be clarified before all hell breaks loose!
My first major objection is Sec. 13 which calls for the setting up of regional offices just like any government department. I don’t know if this is a political compromise hatched by Gordon to please the other members of Congress who would demand a tourism office even if it will take eons to bring tourists to their shore, otherwise they might not vote to pass this bill. What Gordon is doing is recreating the same bureaucracy which as you know will be staffed by people who know nothing about the tourism industry because they are mere "bata bata’s" of politicians! If you ask me, this is nothing but a job creation that the tourism industry doesn’t need. Give us a break, Dick.
Another objection I have is the renaming of the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA) to the Philippine Tourism Assets Corp. (PTAC), which will supposedly replace the moribund and inutile PTA under whose supervision Cebu lost its famous Gary Player designed Kang-Irag Golf Course. The Kang-Irag Golf course was 85 percent completed when the PTA sequestered it after the EDSA Revolt. PTA gave Kang-Irag to that boastful Jose Go of Ever Gotesco who proceeded to bulldoze the entire golf course against our protestations. If they only listened to us, we would have saved at least nine holes of that golf course. Today, nothing is left and no one in the government has been jailed for this horrifying disaster in Cebu!
Why can’t the government simply shutdown the PTA and sell all those assets which they already know are losing money for the government? If you ask me, this bill is merely changing the collar of an already inutile dog called the PTA. We should get rid of the dog and all its fleas! I strongly believe that the government should get out of business, which we all know have become the "milking cow" of the political patronage system. Just take a good look at all the sequestered TV and radio stations 20 years later and find out who is pocketing some of the loose change there? Finally, I support Sec. 12 creating the Bureau of Tourism Standards, Regulations and Industry because we need to create a "Culture of Tourism," which is something we already wrote about a few years ago but since we’ve ran out of space we shall write more about this issue in future columns.
Our good friend Sen. Richard "Dick" Gordon is quite visible these days selling his latest tourism idea through a proposition called the Senate Bill No. 2138, otherwise known as the "Tourism Act of 2005".
Honestly, I don’t know if this proposal is an amendment of previous laws on tourism or whether this is entirely a new bill. But nonetheless, President Arroyo has certified that Gordon’s bill should be considered "urgent" and therefore a priority bill of her administration.
Gordon is proposing to create Tourism Philippines, a corporation combining the functions of the Philippine Convention and Visitors Corp. (PCVC) and the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA), which would also include the promotions and marketing departments of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). This is purportedly to strengthen the tourism industry.
But before I could get the comments of the members of the Hotel, Resorts and Restaurants Association of Cebu (HRRAC) on this proposed bill, another group called the National Association of Independent Travel Agencies (Naitas) chaired by Bobby Joseph called a press conference last Wednesday to object to the proposal, citing that "the majority of the tourism stakeholders, those who will be directly affected by the measure, were never consulted when the bills were considered in the Senate and the House of Representatives."
One key objection is the collection of a tourism fee of $5 per day/night on top of the rack rates for all hotels. I don’t know the thoughts of Gordon on this but certainly the tourists paying top dollar at the Mactan Island Shangri-la Resort or Plantation Bay wouldn’t mind paying that fee but to a downtown hotel that sounds pretty steep. They could end up losing clients altogether.
Perhaps next week, the HRRAC would have their own comments on this bill, not to mention those coming from the Hotel and Restaurant Association of the Philippines (HRAP).
I reckon that Gordon just has to respond to the objections. After all, as Mrs. Arroyo promised when she took her oath of office her administration will be a government of consultation and Cebu will be a major tourism hub, the backbone of the government’s effort to improve tourism industry.
We’re not saying that Gordon doesn’t know the problems of tourism in this country. Of course he does, but that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t consult with the people in the industry who would be affected by his tourism bill. He should!
I was just browsing through the proposal and yes, it calls for a huge reorganization of the present inutile set up in the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the agencies handling tourism.
Gordon is right when he says, "At present, there are three lead agencies in tourism — the DOT, the PTA and the PCVC. But they don’t have clear functions, mandates and powers. All three are involved in promotions.
DOT and PTA and local governments are involved in tourism development. There’s not enough money to go around as it is, yet we still have to divide it into three. PTA was supposed to develop tourism zones. Did it do that? No, instead it went into business, but all its businesses are losing money. And to think, it receives P500 million a year from travel taxes, and they have nothing to show for it. For PCVC, when it was established in 1981, Manila was the number one center for international conventions in Asia, and number eight in the world. But because PCVC never got the money to promote the Philippines, we just disappeared from the radar.
The bill proposes that DOT should focus on drafting regulations in cooperation with the private sector. The PTA will be reorganized into the Tourism Enterprise Zone Authority to develop tourism zones together with the private sector, and PTA’s businesses will be spun off or liquidated. PCVC will be reorganized into a joint public and private sector effort that will get the money it needs to promote the Philippines.
I do not doubt the noble goal that Sen. Gordon has set for the tourism industry and I know that after reading this column, I’m going to get a call from Dick. So early on, let me say that his proposal has good points, which should be magnified but there are certainly some objectionable points, which need to be clarified before all hell breaks loose!
My first major objection is Sec. 13 which calls for the setting up of regional offices just like any government department. I don’t know if this is a political compromise hatched by Gordon to please the other members of Congress who would demand a tourism office even if it will take eons to bring tourists to their shore, otherwise they might not vote to pass this bill. What Gordon is doing is recreating the same bureaucracy which as you know will be staffed by people who know nothing about the tourism industry because they are mere "bata bata’s" of politicians! If you ask me, this is nothing but a job creation that the tourism industry doesn’t need. Give us a break, Dick.
Another objection I have is the renaming of the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA) to the Philippine Tourism Assets Corp. (PTAC), which will supposedly replace the moribund and inutile PTA under whose supervision Cebu lost its famous Gary Player designed Kang-Irag Golf Course. The Kang-Irag Golf course was 85 percent completed when the PTA sequestered it after the EDSA Revolt. PTA gave Kang-Irag to that boastful Jose Go of Ever Gotesco who proceeded to bulldoze the entire golf course against our protestations. If they only listened to us, we would have saved at least nine holes of that golf course. Today, nothing is left and no one in the government has been jailed for this horrifying disaster in Cebu!
Why can’t the government simply shutdown the PTA and sell all those assets which they already know are losing money for the government? If you ask me, this bill is merely changing the collar of an already inutile dog called the PTA. We should get rid of the dog and all its fleas! I strongly believe that the government should get out of business, which we all know have become the "milking cow" of the political patronage system. Just take a good look at all the sequestered TV and radio stations 20 years later and find out who is pocketing some of the loose change there? Finally, I support Sec. 12 creating the Bureau of Tourism Standards, Regulations and Industry because we need to create a "Culture of Tourism," which is something we already wrote about a few years ago but since we’ve ran out of space we shall write more about this issue in future columns.
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