Christmas vacation 2008 in the Philippines - The effects of the global economy crisis on Philippine tourist industry and Philippines tourist services

There is most likely no country free from impact by the global economy crisis. The crisis however is man made. Our crisis is the result of an excess number of people producing an excess number of mistakes in management.

The situation in the Philippines is little different from the global situation or the situation in other South East Asian countries such as Cambodia, Thailand and other tourist destinations.

Particular for the Philippines is the above average laziness and lack of reliability. From top business management and hotel owner levels to the average employee level - Filipino are far above average lazy and suffer from a lack of motivation and lack of efficiency.

My recent several weeks lasting travel to Baguio City, then to Bauang / San Fernando La Union and now back again in Angeles showed an overall heavy decay of quality across all parts of services including tourist industry, hotels, resorts, Internet Service Providers and restaurants. The quality drops, in many cases far below acceptable level. As a result many services no longer exist or ar of such inferior quality that it is advisable to look for alternative vacation destinations. The world is large and the competition among tourist destinations large. The good and strong tourist destinations will survive, the weak ones may return back to agriculture and local business.

For the past 4+ months all major Internet Service Providers have dropped dramatically in quality. May be running out of funds ? May be expanding too much without investing / expanding in new technology and more bandwidth ? The cause finally is unimportant for a customer. Important is a simple question / answer: Is a service existing and if YES is that service reliable, 24/7 and of above average quality?

Average is what causes a global crisis. Above average - FAR above average - is what keeps the world progressing. On a long term basis there is no place for average stuff and even less place for below average or bad quality. Trash never should be attempted or created. Top is in demand. Top makes happy and creates satisfaction and pleasant memories. Pleasant memories is what keeps customers coming back.

During my a.m. travel I have been at long time known established resorts and restaurants. Encountering repeated situations where basic items were out of stock, Internet disconnected for unknown cause for 3+ days, ....

As a result of substantially lower quality these weeks and months in the Philippines, the occupancy rate in visited hotels also was /b is substantially lower. Some of the places had an occupancy rate nearly half or less than normal. In La Union I was for a while one of 2 guests in a resort with some 30 rooms. In Angeles - last year this time around - the hotel was more or less full, now plenty of rooms free all week long since many months - even these early December days.

After many years of peak tourist traffic and steady growth, most business may have sufficient funds for a few months low occupancy nor low business traffic. Then however things may get more serious and some of the places may have to close down.

This decrease in overall quality of tourist services and tourist industry quality is ideal for our global crisis. It makes people's decision to spend holidays at home at zero cost easier and people may find that Christmas at home may be the most beautiful Christmas ever - Holidays amidst friends, neighbors and family members.

To be a friendly, loving and smiling country such as the Philippine islands is only part of success - to be a loving worker, efficient and professional is the other mandatory requirement for success in a high competition market suffering from global crisis. Like in nature - the best and strongest will survive, all others may shut down. By the end a better and more qualified world consisting of more devoted and more committed partners will result.

For money oriented people, tourism may be considered a blessing. For the wide population however tourism may create more destruction of native culture, destruction of native prices - prices from affordable homes to living expenses. Additional environment pollution and social stress almost always results from large tourist industry. I look back to Thailand when I first visited a beautiful Siamese culture and near virgin beach some 30+ years ago. By then Thailand was "Siam" - an exotic Asian culture nearly untouched by the West, Thailand of the early seventies belonged to Thai people. Now Thailand is a corrupt and damaged culture violated by Millions of annual tourists. No money ever can repair damage done to native Thai lifestyle by tourist. A far more simple life may be preferable compared to the life of a money oriented tourist destination. The real financial benefits of a successful tourist destination always and only goes into the pockets of the rich resort owners and travel realted industries. The additional employments and wages are far below human and at no time can really be considered a benefit for the average population.

A similar situation exists in most popular tourist destinations who became victim of their tourist success. Examples are: Mallorca and other Spanish destinations. Rimini and neighborhood in Italy, Maledive islands and many many other popular exotic destinations. From that point of view, a decay of Phillippine tourist industry quality and decay of tourist services may be a blessing for the entire country. May be some Filipinos need more peace, more quality time in their home province rather than in tourist resort areas far from home! Some of the global tourist destinations need a vacation - a vacation far away from any tourists. A time to rest, a time to recover - nature, local culture and local social life. Years of rest may be too short. The longer the vacation the greater the chance to survive and recover from all the tourist damage done to all those international tourist destinations and vacation targets.

Merry Christmas - Love and Bliss

hans