Philippines tourism development & how to avoid more Boracays

Prom­in­ent Filipino writer and eco­nom­ist Dr Bern­ardo M Vil­le­g­as is encour­aged by the pre­lim­in­ary draft of the next Phil­ip­pines tour­ism devel­op­ment plan because of its intent to devel­op low-dens­ity, com­munity-based, and nature-based tour­ism and to pro­mote the use of green tech­no­lo­gies. How­ever, in this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Dr Vil­le­g­as urges author­it­ies to look to Spain as a case study in waste man­age­ment in order to avoid more Boracays.

Whenev­er I enu­mer­ate some of the Phil­ip­pines’ lead­ing tour­ism des­tin­a­tions, espe­cially to domest­ic tour­ists, I try to single out the less-trod­den places like Siqui­jor, Malapas­cua, Cam­iguin, Cam­otes, Pagud­pud, San Vicente (Palawan), Coron, Kalanga­man (East­ern Visay­as), Guimaras, Sicogon, San Juan (La Uni­on) and Baler (Aurora). I inten­tion­ally omit men­tion­ing the over-vis­ited and over-rated Bor­a­cay. My fond wish is that the numer­ous island des­tin­a­tions that are now increas­ingly access­ible, thanks to improve­ment in infra­struc­tures (not­ably the Phil­ip­pine naut­ic­al high­way), will not fol­low the way of Boracay.

That is why I was glad to read among the stra­tegic dir­ec­tions to be taken by the Depart­ment of Tour­ism in a pre­lim­in­ary draft of the Nation­al Tour­ism Devel­op­ment Plan (2016 to 2022) the fol­low­ing item:

Preserve Environment and Promote Climate Change Adaptation

Nature-based tour­ism can be a source of com­munity pride and live­li­hood, and their use as tour­ism assets for eco­tour­ism and low-impact tour­ism can also be an edu­ca­tion­al tool for high­light­ing envir­on­ment­al pre­ser­va­tion meas­ures show­cas­ing sus­tain­able good prac­tices in tak­ing care of the nat­ur­al sur­round­ings. The growth of this par­tic­u­lar travel mar­ket seg­ment has been the corner­stone of suc­cess in sev­er­al counties as trav­el­ers con­tin­ue to seek unique, authen­t­ic, and envir­on­ment-friendly des­tin­a­tions and products. The Nation­al Eco­tour­ism Strategy forged by the DENR and the DOT is a strategy to foster a con­nec­tion to nature and the last­ing com­mit­ment to their conservation.

Among the strategies con­sidered are the following:

• Imple­ment the Nation­al Eco­tour­ism Strategy and devel­op at least 12 eco­tour­ism sites as pilot areas with emphas­is on employ­ment generation.
• Devel­op nation­al parks and mar­ine sanc­tu­ar­ies for low-dens­ity, recre­ation and tour­ism activ­it­ies with private sec­tor invest­ment involving Medi­um Scale and Small Enter­prises (MSMEs).
• Pro­mote green tech­no­lo­gies and innov­at­ive meas­ures in tour­ist sites and tour­ism enterprises.

In this regard, I would like to call atten­tion to a pos­i­tion paper com­ing from the Phil­ip­pine Insti­tute of Envir­on­ment­al Plan­ners (PIEP) and the Alli­ance for Safe, Sus­tain­able and Resi­li­ent Envir­on­ments (ASSURE) entitled “How Do We Solve A Prob­lem Like Bor­a­cay.” The paper laments the worsen­ing envir­on­ment­al con­di­tions in this premi­er tour­ism des­tin­a­tion in the Visay­as allegedly due to untreated wastewa­ter and improp­er sol­id waste man­age­ment. The con­cern is not only with the cata­stroph­ic impact on Boracay’s tour­ism industry but more import­antly on its res­id­ents’ and vis­it­ors’ health, safety and well-being.

The case of Bor­a­cay is an example of imprudent over-devel­op­ment and con­ges­tion per­mit­ted by the loc­al gov­ern­ment author­it­ies. As the paper points out, in 2000, only 229,509 tour­ist arrivals were recor­ded in Bor­a­cay. Since then, the num­ber dra­mat­ic­ally rose to 1,725,483 mil­lion by 2016. Accord­ing to the Muni­cip­al­ity of Malay, tour­ist arrivals will con­tin­ue to increase with the expec­ted arrival of cruise ships. The island’s envir­on­ment­al car­ry­ing capa­city will be fur­ther exceeded unless the fol­low­ing meas­ures are car­ried out:

• The enforce­ment by the gov­ern­ment agen­cies con­cerned of the exist­ing envir­on­ment­al and san­it­a­tion ordin­ances that Bor­a­cay already has;
• The imme­di­ate install­a­tion of wastewa­ter treat­ment facil­it­ies and/or con­nec­tion to the sewage treat­ment plant by hotels, busi­ness estab­lish­ment and res­id­ences. Fund­ing for this can come from the Envir­on­ment­al Fee that the gov­ern­ment col­lects from each vis­it­or to Boracay;
• The pro­mo­tion of and sup­port to the adop­tion by loc­al res­id­ents and tour­ists of eco­lo­gic­ally respons­ible beha­vi­or; and
• An imme­di­ate col­lab­or­at­ive assess­ment by Boracay’s key stake­hold­er groups of the eco­lo­gic­al car­ry­ing capa­city of the Island in order to estab­lish a mutu­ally bene­fi­cial course of action and stand­ards of sus­tain­able tourism.

The loc­al gov­ern­ment offi­cials respons­ible for the wel­fare of the res­id­ents of Bor­a­cay should explore the pos­sib­il­ity of attract­ing private investors to take advant­age of the Pub­lic Private Part­ner­ship for the People (P4) pro­vi­sion of the Loc­al Gov­ern­ment Code of 1992 to put up waste treat­ment and dis­pos­al facil­it­ies. Among the best prac­tices that should be con­sidered in this regard are those that come from Spain.

Spain is the coun­try par excel­lence for tour­ism. Spain has man­aged to keep their beaches pristine and envir­on­ment­ally sus­tain­able, des­pite tens of mil­lions of tour­ists vis­it­ing annu­ally, because the Span­iards have per­fec­ted the tech­no­logy of waste treat­ment and recyc­ling. In 2016, Spain had close to 70 mil­lion tour­ists com­pared with only 45 mil­lion per­man­ent res­id­ents in the coun­try. Des­pite these num­bers, beaches such as those in Costa Brava, Costa del Sol, Palma de Mal­lorca and oth­er favor­ite resorts have not met the fate of Bor­a­cay because of advanced prac­tices in envir­on­ment­al man­age­ment. There are tech­no­lo­gies which can con­vert waste into energy, con­struc­tion mater­i­als and organ­ic fer­til­izers that Span­ish com­pan­ies can read­ily bring to the Phil­ip­pines. People from the private sec­tor and loc­al gov­ern­ment units inter­ested in these tech­no­lo­gies may get in touch with Bar­cino Advisers, a group of pro­fes­sion­als pro­mot­ing closer trade and invest­ment rela­tions between the Phil­ip­pines and Spain.

For the bene­fit first of our own domest­ic tour­ists (which the Depart­ment of Tour­ism estim­ates to be 65 mil­lion in 2016) as well as for­eign tour­ists (estim­ated at 6 mil­lion in 2017), we should make sure that beach resorts all over the Phil­ip­pine Archipelago will learn from the sins of omis­sion of those respons­ible for the wel­fare of the Bor­a­cay res­id­ents. We need loc­al gov­ern­ment offi­cials who are pro­act­ive and who do not depend on nation­al offices based in the Nation­al Cap­it­al Region for solu­tions to their envir­on­ment­al problems.

I am glad that there are asso­ci­ations like the Phil­ip­pine Insti­tute of Envir­on­ment­al Plan­ners (PIEP) presently led by Ms Maria Theresa Quimpo as Pres­id­ent and the Alli­ance for Safe, Sus­tain­able and Resi­li­ent Envir­on­ments (ASSURE) led by its Pres­id­ent Nath­aniel von Ein­siedel who are assist­ing loc­al com­munit­ies to become safe, sus­tain­able and resi­li­ent. I am also glad to learn that Ms Gina Lopez, former Sec­ret­ary of the Depart­ment of Envir­on­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, is put­ting up a found­a­tion to pro­mote the cause of sus­tain­able envir­on­ment which is direly needed in our mul­tiple tour­ism zones. May their tribe increase.

Fea­tured image: Beach scene, the Phil­ip­pines. By Angelo Juan Ramos from Makati City, Phil­ip­pines (CC BY 2.0) via Wiki­me­dia.

About the author

With a Ph.D. in Eco­nom­ics from Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, Dr Bern­ardo M Vil­le­g­as is a Filipino writer and eco­nom­ist. He was a mem­ber of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Com­mis­sion that draf­ted the Phil­ip­pine Con­sti­tu­tion under the gov­ern­ment of Pres­id­ent Corazon Aquino. Cur­rently he is a pro­fess­or and seni­or vice-pres­id­ent at the Uni­ver­sity of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P), the research dir­ect­or of the Cen­ter for Research and Com­mu­nic­a­tion, and vis­it­ing pro­fess­or at IESE.