The Department of Tourism (DOT) targets 38M local, foreign tourists by 2016

Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim has lined up key infrastructure projects, among which, are the construction of more international airports and the development of new travel and flight destinations to rev up the local tourism industry as he bared on Monday the country’s new medium-term tourism development plan.

The Department of Tourism (DOT), he added will also seek to erase tourists’ misimpressions that the Philippines is “dirty, dangerous and disorderly.”In his first press briefing a year since he assumed the Tourism Cabinet portfolio, Lim admitted the Philippines needs “a lot of catching up to do” to level off with neighbors in Southeast Asia.

He said among the three Ds of negative branding that has been attached to the Philippines, the government has only addressed, the dangerous tag by deploying 1,000 officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to patrol key tourism destinations in Metro Manila, as well as other provinces like Boracay, Palawan, Cebu and Davao.

In 2009 the Philippines ranks sixth out of seven in terms of number of foreign tourists going to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Malaysia ranks first with 23-million foreign tourist arrivals in 2009, followed by Thailand with 14 million and Singapore with 7.5 million. Indonesia ranks fourth with 6.3 million; Vietnam with 3.74 million and the Philippines with only 3 million foreign tourism arrivals.He said under the new National Tourism Development Plan, the country aims to double foreign tourist arrivals at 6.3 million international arrivals and 32 million domestic travelers by 2016.

The Tourism chief said one of the three key strategies includes the improvement of market access and connectivity through establishing airports.He said the government is set to hold public bidding on the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects to establish international airports in Panglao, Bohol, Daraga in Albay, Puerta Princesa in Palawan and Cagayan de Oro.

Lim pointed out “there have been mismatch in the implementation of tourism management plan before.” He said one of them is the construction of the Iloilo International Airport. Yet, until now there are no international flights there, he said.“We also need to address the safety concerns raised by the Civil Aviation Authority,” he said.

Lim said the country’s saving grace is domestic tourism, which remains robust on the account of budget and promotional fares being offered by local airlines.The Tourism department also intends to develop marketing competitive tourist destinations and products, as well as improving tourism institutional governance and human resource.

Source = abs-cbnnews