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Lonely Planet listing fails to sway DOT on beaches


The Philippines is one of Lonely Planet's Top 10 best value destinations for 2011, nearly replacing Thailand as the go-to spot "for those who desire nothing more than to find great, undiscovered beaches, surf the odd wave and eat unique, distinctive food for under $20 a day." According to travel guide publisher Lonely Planet, the ideal island hopping destinations are the Zambales Coast in northwestern Luzon and the Bacuit Archipelago (better known as El Nido) in northern Palawan. With the country still reeling from a string of image-busting blows last year, in particular the August 23 Luneta massacre that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead, the commendation from Lonely Planet gives Philippine tourism a shot of morale. In addition to the deaths of tourists, the Department of Tourism is still coping with the fall-out from the Pilipinas Kay Ganda campaign fiasco, and the negative travel advisories by six nations. As 2010 and those incidents fade from memory, the DOT has taken on an optimistic stand and a different tack this year. The department said more than 2.84 million tourists arrived in the country in January-October 2010 — the latest numbers available — an increase of 15.85 percent from the same period in 2009. Beyond sun and sea destinations The approach to tourism this year veers away from Lonely Planet’s fixation with island life, as the DOT intends to zero in on cultural spots rather than the numerous white sand beaches dotting the country's 7,000 plus islands. "This year we are going beyond the sun and sea destinations. We want to highlight our cultural and heritage sites as well as health and wellness destinations," said Lim, former president of Ten Knots Development Corp., the owner and manager of El Nido resorts. The key is quality, according to the former high-end resort developer. “Unbridled tourism is also bad because the environment suffers. So we are very careful about the type of tourism we want. The people who come for culture, history and nature, maybe we can receive them," he said in a statement. While attractions like Boracay are overdeveloped, many beautiful artifacts are deteriorating in warehouses. "We should get museums in the old style operating in the old city," Lim said. A former executive director of The Makati Business Club, Lim plans to double the country’s tourism revenues in six years by attracting high-paying tourists instead of the mass market. The tourism department is also focusing on nature tourism, a niche market that Philippine tourism officials think has a lot of potential. Lim said he will support the first Malasimbo Arts and Music Festival next month in Puerto Galera on Mindoro island Festival tickets are expensive and a portion of the proceeds will fund reforestation along the famous Baclayan Trail, a project that may provide livelihood activities to the indigenous Mangyan community. "This event will be a worthy example of how the private and public sectors can work together to bring about sustainable development and the alleviation of poverty in our country," said Lim. Blue, open skies ahead A former board member of the Civil Aeronautics Board, Lim co-founded the Freedom to Fly Coalition whose main advocacy is an open-skies policy to promote economic development. “Access creates investments, investments create hotel facilities and that will also lower prices," according to the tourism secretary. His stand has provoked the ire of other stakeholders. Travel Cooperative of the Philippines chairman Robert Lim Joseph has accused Lim of prioritizing foreign interests in advocating an "unlimited" open-skies policy. Joseph has opposed Lim's appointment as tourism chief, citing the Pilipinas Kay Ganda campaign to attract tourists that ended in a flop. Malacañang is set to issue this week an executive order (EO) on President Benigno Aquino III's "pocket open skies policy," reaffirming EO 219 issued in 1995 by then President Fidel V. Ramos to boost tourism and investments with a more liberal international aviation policy. Public-private partnership A priority of the Aquino administration is the public-private partnership (PPP) initiative with many projects on infrastructure development supporting travel and tourism. Lim said such projects will help increase tourist arrivals from 3 million a year to 6 million by 2013. But former Finance Secretary Roberto de Ocampo earlier countered that the effects of PPP projects on tourism and agribusiness will only be felt two years from now. “As of the moment, these projects are still in their early stages. We can barely say [that] their effects will be felt too soon," he said. Lim also plans to refocus the department’s budget from marketing and promotion to product development. “We need to develop first-rate products and come up with impeccable services to draw more tourists. We have to be more visible by generating very good projects and we should deliver what we promised," Lim said. — VS/HS, GMANews.TV

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