Interview with Hon. Christina Garcia Frasco, Secretary of the Department of Tourism (DOT), Philippines

06 Aug Interview with Hon. Christina Garcia Frasco, Secretary of the Department of Tourism (DOT), Philippines

Why should a tourist choose to visit the Philippines over other destinations and what unique features set the archipelago apart from other countries?

The Philippines offers a multitude of reasons to love our country. Our nation is made up of 7,641 islands that are home to mega-biodiverse species. We are only one of 18 mega-biodiverse countries in the world and our culture is a mix of various influences that make for a very memorable, enriching and immersive Philippine experience for every tourist that comes upon our shores. You will find the Malaysian influence, the Spanish influence and the American influence and that makes for a very diverse mix from our clothing or textiles to our food, to our communities. Every region that you visit has something unique, special and different to offer.

The Philippines is also home to award-winning beaches, naturescapes and adventure destinations. It is currently the world’s leading beach destination, the world’s leading dive destination and Asia’s best cruise destination. Boracay is well known all over the world for its sustainability efforts, apart from its pristine beaches and waters. We have the world-renowned Palawan islands that are host to enormous offerings, especially in terms of their variety. In the north of Palawan, we have El Nido and Coron. We have the center of Palawan, called the Princesa, which has a Subterranean River with caves. If you go to the south of Palawan, we have Quezon, home to the famous Tabon Caves, which hosts the evidence of the first life in the Philippines 24,000 years ago.

If you are in search of diversity, Cebu can offer such a diverse experience in that it is a ridge-to-reef experience from our beaches or dive sites to our mountains. Very near Cebu, is the ecotourism gem that is Bohol, which is home to the UNESCO GeoPark Chocolate Hills, as well as a host of churches that have been recognized and listed under UNESCO.

In addition to that, the cities of Iloilo and Bacolod offer gastronomic delights. If you go further down south to the island of Mindanao, it offers a myriad of unparalleled cultural experiences, especially that the indigenous people here continue to thrive. It offers our tourists a very immersive visit through interactions with our communities. Not to mention the vast mountainscapes as well as the beautiful coastlines of the entire Mindanao, I was recently in Bukidnon, which has mountain ranges and cowboy culture that is alive and exists hand in hand with their indigenous people. I also visited Cagayan recently and other parts of Mindanao, including the Zamboanga Peninsula, which is home to the world-famous pink beach.

If you’re interested in surfing, we have Siargao. If you go up north, you have the most distant islands of the Philippines, which are the Batanes Islands, home to the United Nations Sustainable Tourism Observatory. We have the home province of our President, Ilocos Norte, which is a myriad of delicious northern Luzon cuisine, as well as home to our famous windmills. If you want the chilly weather, you have Baguio as well as the rest of the mountain province that is home to the Banaue Rice Terraces. If you are interested in surfing in that area, you have La Union and Aurora as well.

You can go to Pampanga, north Luzon for delicious food. The Philippines can offer unforgettable experiences to any type of traveler, whether you are a family, a couple, a solo traveler, or an adventure seeker, if you are seeking health and wellness, or if you seek to discover marine biodiversity, the Philippines does have it all.

What opportunities does tourism in the Philippines offer for Americans and why should they consider visiting the country?

We are very grateful to our tourists from the US who have traditionally been within our top three source markets, with nearly a million Americans visiting us. Last year it was a demonstration of the great interest that the Americans have in the Philippines and the fact that there is now a direct flight from San Francisco to Manila and a forthcoming direct flight from Seattle to Manila is a robust indication of that great interest in the country.

The Philippines can offer our American travelers a wide variety of experiences from sun and beach through our award-winning and emerging beach destinations to adventure. Either you can go canyoneering in Cebu, or you can take the longest double zipline in Southeast Asia, which is in Dahilayan in Bukidnon. You can go surfing in San Juan, La Union, or Eastern Samar, or you can even avail of our health, wellness and medical tourism offerings in Calabarzon or the central Philippines. Another advantage that the Philippines can offer is that there is also a sense of familiarity considering the American influence that has been in the Philippines for several years and that is evident in our culture as well. We are also able to offer a myriad of dive destinations in the country. We now have 120 dive destinations that allow you to explore a wide variety of marine life. We have Tubbataha in Palawan, which is world-renowned, not to mention our Apo Island diving as well. The mecca for diving is Anilao as well as our myriad of sharks that you can find in Malapascua in Cebu. Whether you are an adventure seeker or a diver, or you want to lounge on the beach, or rather you just want to eat your way through the Philippines we have those to offer to our American tourists. Not to mention our golf courses as well, which are very reasonably priced and of very high quality, which is why we are also now pushing for the full maximization of the golf tourism potential of the country.

For the urban travelers, we have the city of Manila, which can give a look into our heritage and our history through Intramuros, Binondo, the Manila Clark Tower and that entire stretch of the area or the ultramodern offerings of the country, which are in Taguig in BGC or Makati for that matter. Shopping tourism is also one thing that we can offer, especially now that both luxury and local brands coexist in our contemporary and urban tourism destinations. We have the Philippines Hop-on Hop-off bus tours that we launched in Metro Manila that allow you to have a view into the various cities in Metro Manila in several hours. We are forthcoming for that project would be the launch of our layover tours for transit passengers.

One of the advantages of the Philippines is that we have the best faculty for English among our Southeast Asian counterparts. We offer English as a second language as a tourism offering in certain destinations. There is an immediate comfort level that we can offer in that Filipinos can speak English very well and communicate very well. The overarching quality that the Philippines has is the unparalleled warmth and hospitality that we can offer all of our guests whether American or any other nationality. We firmly believe that it is this sense of love that we offer to any guests that come to our shores that encourages our tourists to come back repeatedly.

How is the DOT prioritizing sustainable tourism, especially in the context of adventure/active tourism?

Under the administration of President Ferdinand. R. Marcos Jr. approved the National Tourism Development Plan, wherein sustainable tourism serves as the umbrella principle that governs both the vision under the National Tourism Development Plan and the objectives of the department. It is our president’s desire for Philippine tourism to come upon an age of transformation in that we envision tourism not only to be able to offer unforgettable experiences now but also for generations to come, which is why the focus of the National Tourism Development Plan both on the developmental pillars of tourism and the sustainable tourism measures that we are very closely monitoring in conjunction with our fellow government agencies.

The priority program of the president under the NTDP is the development of infrastructure and connectivity, in that we are building roads to tourist destinations and bridges that will allow for easier access and faster connectivity. With the improvement of airports as well as the improvement of seaports, especially in the Philippines, we have very attractive cruise destinations. We are also endeavoring to improve connectivity digitally in that we are activating improved internet connectivity in our destination to allow for maximum exposure for our destination, especially online social media and the like.

We are working very closely with our local government units and our private stakeholders to ensure that the development of tourism is done in a manner that allows for the development of basic infrastructure, the promotion of the destination and the sustainability of the destination to encourage our tourists to leave the destination better than they found it. This is precisely why we have launched the Philippine Experience Program, where we immerse our tourists in our local communities, show them our way of life and show them the good work that’s being done at the grassroots and through our local government units to conserve nature, to preserve our culture and to have an appreciation for our Filipino identity. We are in the ninth edition of the program. What we are seeing is robust interest in our emerging destinations by way of programs such as this, which seek to diversify the tourism offerings of the country, we can avoid over-tourism in well-known destinations and drive tourism in emerging and lesser-known destinations.

We’re also working very closely with other government agencies such as the Department of Environment, Natural Resources and the Department of Interior so that the basic components of sustainable tourism are present in our destination, such as proper water systems, water treatment and distribution systems, drainage systems, our waste management systems and the like. We are taking a deep dive into ensuring that the destination is not just attractive, but also sustainable for the long run. We have also engaged in educating our tourism stakeholders towards sustainable tourism principles. That is why we have launched the very first tourist assistance call center that can cater to the needs of our tourists wherever they may be in the Philippines, by dialing 151-TOUR a number that they can call.

We have also launched the Enhanced Travel Philippines mobile application that you can download on your phone, so you have access to information from all our destinations. We have constructed tourist rest areas all over the country. We’ve done 10 so far, nine have been completed and one is ongoing in Luzon and Mindanao. We have at least 20 more forthcoming for this year, which have an information center, a souvenir center, clean and decent restrooms as well as breastfeeding rooms. The second iteration for our tourist rest areas is sustainable in the sense that it will be solar-powered.

Finally, we are ensuring that the heart and soul of the Philippine tourism industry shine bright in the person of our tourism front liners, which is why we are continuing with our Filipino brand of service excellence program, which has trained 127,000 workers in 2023. One of the essential components of this is our tourism front liners’ respect for the environment, which is one of the values of Filipino hospitality.

Could you give us a brief overview of the Bisita Be My Guest program?

The Bisita Be My Guest program is a flagship administration program in partnership between the Department of Tourism and the Department of Migrant Workers, where we provide incentives to overseas Filipinos who invite foreigners to come to the Philippines. All they have to do is register as a sponsor on the Bisita Be My Guest webpage and indicate the person that they’re inviting.

In exchange for that, they have the opportunity to win free airline tickets, free holiday packages, a house, a condominium, or a shopping spree. We highly value our overseas Filipinos as the best tourism ambassadors for the Philippines. Whether it’s their devotion to duty and service, or how well they cook Filipino food, we know they are putting their best foot forward for the Philippines and that’s why we’ve taken the Bisita Be My Guest program in several jurisdictions all over the world and it has been met with such a positive reception by our Filipino community, especially that it recognizes as well the huge contribution that they have to our economy and our entire tourism portfolio.

The program is still ongoing and the registration is still open. You can register online and have the chance to win the prizes that I mentioned. The Bisita Be My Guest program also features various destinations across the country to encourage visits to our well-known destinations such as Boracay, Cebu, Palawan, Bohol, Vigan in Ilocos Sur, or our emerging destinations such as Leyte, Siargao and other such areas that have yet to be fully well-known to the world.

Do you have a final message for the millions of readers of USA Today about choosing the Philippines as their next business, tourism, or investment destination?

I would like to extend my warmest invitation to our friends from America to visit the Philippines and to see for themselves why there are so many reasons to celebrate our beloved nation. We promise an unforgettable journey that leaves in your mind only wonderful memories of being loved, being full of all the delicious food and being immersed in our culture, the heart and soul of our nation.