Joe Pallugna
I WOULD deviate now from the legal problems and solutions that I had been writing about in my previous columns to write of a subject matter that I have been longing write about in the past months, even years.
This desire has been reinforced in the past week as I went for the much-needed vacation over the long Halloween weekend to Tagaytay City in Batangas Province, to Puerto Galera in Oriental Mindoro Province and to Laguna, Cavite and Quezon Provinces.
Indeed, it was a very long week, and the weekend thereafter. And my thoughts over all these years got the long-needed impetus to be a bit more vocal of my then-silent thoughts.
And now I write about the dearth of tourism coordination that the neighboring provinces of Misamis Oriental, Misamis Occidental, Camiguin, Bukidnon and Lanao del Norte and the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Malaybalay, Gingoog, Iligan, Ozamiz, and all the municipalities that comprise these provinces I mentioned.
And when I speak of tourism, I do not put any blame on the regional director or the provincial and city and municipal directors of the Department of Tourism. They are just coordinating and planning agencies tasked with helping in making a direction of the tourism programs of the local governments. These agencies could hardly effectively implement any tourism program if the local governments do not first get their acts together.
Tourism really starts with the local chief executives in the provinces and municipalites and cities. I say this because from the arrival of the tourists, local and foreign, at the airports, piers and ports, and bus terminals--if the tourists do not arive by private cars--there should be a well-coordinated program of how they are welcomed, accommodated, fed, entertained, and sent off home with a very happy and satisfied countenance, experience and attitude that they could all exclaim: “Wow! I should be back!”
And why should they not be? For me, they should not, and this is why.
We, in the provinces and cities and municipalities I mentioned above, all located in Region 10, have not gotten our acts together.
First, nobody works coordinatedly in all our airports and ports and bus terminals. Tourists, especially foreigners, arrive at Laguindingan airport, for example, and nobody even cares to welcome them and guide them to their hotels. Nobody invites them directly to eat and enjoy the local foods, and nobody encourages them where to go and make the most out of their time and money in the region.
On the contrary, from the port of Cagayan de Oro, the taxi drivers and jeepney drivers dupe them of the right fares, fleece them of their money right upon arrival. They are often robbed!
Second, as they arrive in their hotels, nobody suggests to them sincerely of what to do that same day, or of the next days of their stay. I mean that if only there is a local tourism director who could suggest that Day 1 should be for waterafting, and next day scuba diving at Duka Bay Resort or in Camiguin or Agutayan Island, then golf on the 3rd day in the many golf courses we have, then two days in Dahilayan Park or in Malasag or Kinawe or in the inland resorts in Bukidnon like in Maramag or in Iligan City, then a day trip to Lanao del Norte with its numerous events, and then to the waterfalls in Iligan City...
Tourists simply don’t know where to go next to maximize their stay in Region 10.
Third, we don’t have the basic coordinated tourism infrastructure that would provide ready and reasonable transportation facilities, scuba diving equipment and golfing gears, educated and well-trained tourist guides for each specific activity, and even the hotel front desk clerks are not knowledgeable of what to suggest to tourists even if the tourists don’t ask at the beginning. We should train the frontliners in our tourism industry to be facilitating, overtly suggestive and even heartwarmingly solicitous in offering our tourism sites and activities.
Fourth, we don’t even have a coordinated tourism package that supports the tourism sites and activities in Gingoog City’s waterfalls, Camiguin’s and Misamis Oriental’s scuba diving sites, golfing destinations, cultural and educational tours, and inter-activity tours to benfit families.
Read this and tell me if this is not true. When a tourist arrives at Laguindingan Airport, nobody cares where he goes and how he takes a good ride to Cagayan de Oro City. Nobody suggests that he can get a good package price for three nights in Camiguin Island. If he eventually goes to Camiguin and comes back on the 4th day at the Port of Balingoan, nobody comes to him to offer a good free ride to Gingoog City and enjoy the waterfalls and then have a good weekend at Duka Bay Resort in Medina for snorkeling and scuba-dviing. Nobody simply cares!
And this is not the end of my very, very long list of our inadequacies, our lack of realization of all the opportunities lost due to ignorance or to stupidity or simply to lack of foresight or planning.
This is not a lecture of sorts. This is a desired eye-opener on how we have lagged so far behind from our countrymen in the Southern Tagalog regions, even from the Visayan region and the Northern Luzon tourism areas.
Gov. Bambi Emano has already started the tourism areas identificatiion efforts. But that is not even enough. The local chief executives should appoint serious and knowledgeable tourism officers who should draw up a coordinated tourism plan for Region 10, provide funding for the implementation of these plans for at least five straight years, and provide review and evaluation activities to see what are wrong with the programs, how to improve them, and how to sustain them over the next 10 years.
And this is only the beginning.
The higher step is for the people of Region 10 to all know how to make the tourists contented and happy, how to make them come back and how to have them invite and encourage other tourists to come to Mindanao because we have much even better tourist sites than many of the other provinces of the Philippines.
Until then shall we be able to directly benefit from the tourism industry. Until then shall we become a real tourist destination.
E-mail:ajpallugna@gmail.com
