Tuesday, June 02, 2009 [ philstar.com ]
SUBIC BAY FREEPORT: Tourism, already the second biggest money maker and job provider in the country, is likely to emerge as the principal industry soon, which will directly benefit millions of Filipinos all over, a prominent businessman said on Monday.
“Tourism is jobs and business and stronger tourism means more jobs and more business,” according to Robert Lim Joseph, chairman emeritus of the National Association of Independent Travel Agencies Inc. (Naitas).
Taking a cue from The Manila Times special report on the success of the medical tourism Joseph asked all tourism stakeholders to support the recently enacted Tourism Act of 2009, which he said will make the industry the principal engine of growth and development of the country.
According to The Times special report, medical tourism is proving to be a super-bright region in our country’s darkening economic landscape. The country’s chief statistician warns that we are on the brink of a recession.
Tourism Undersecretary Cynthia Carrion was quoted as saying that the medical tourism sub sector performed better in the first quarter of 2009 than in the same period in 2008 despite the global financial crisis.
The 10-percent growth from January to March came from more than 200,000 foreigners who came to our medical, dental, health and wellness centers. If this trend continues, by the end of 2009, a total of 600,000 patients and wellness seekers from abroad would have arrived and stayed spending dollars and offsetting somehow the decline in exports, the decline (God forbid) of OFW remittances and other setbacks caused by the global financial crisis and economic slowdown.
Joseph echoed the rise in the local tourism economy, saying in the first quarter of this year alone, new hotels and resorts, costing P87.16 billion, have already provided employment to 1,286 employees.
He said aside from the medical tourism, the industry as a whole is projecting that by the end of this year, at least 1,946 more people will be directly employed nationwide once the additional 2,315 hotel rooms are operational in Manila, Cebu, Boracay, Puerto Princes, Tagaytay and Albay.
Joseph said more jobs are forthcoming because the Department of Tourism has recently endorsed five development projects worth P6.32 billion which will provide 6,340 new jobs in places where the hotels and resorts will rise.
He said thousands more who are not directly connected with tourism will derive income from it like the carpenters who build hotels and resorts and farmers and fishermen who supply food to bars and restaurants,
“Everyone is actually a stakeholder, including tricycle drivers in towns and provinces who ferry tourists to local destinations or the cigarette vendors who sell outside bars and restaurants,” Joseph said.
-- Francis Earl A. Cueto
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