Cultural tourism to help alleviate poverty

Tourism Secretary Roberto “Obet” Pagdanganan recently joined Asian tourism leaders in their call to address poverty through cultural tourism. During The Ministerial Conference on Cultural Tourism and Poverty Alleviation in Hue, Vietnam, and a Technical Seminar on Cultural Tourism and Poverty Alleviation in Siem Reap, Cambodia, Pagdanganan and his counterparts gathered and analyzed case studies, conclusions, and recommendations that would help carry out policies and actions in addressing poverty through cultural tourism.

The global community has recognized cultural tourism as a powerful solution to poverty because of its job and income-generating potentials.

"The role of the tourism industry in poverty alleviation especially in developing countries cannot be over-emphasized. It is an effective catalyst and a powerful tool for winning the war against poverty. The challenge to all of us is to maximize its benefits to improve the quality of life of our people," he said.

Pagdanganan rallied his Asian counterparts toward an intra-regional cooperation and coordination to help Asian tourism prosper. He believes that a stronger and sustained regional interaction can effectively address Asia’s common concerns, citing more transparent, accurate, and fair travel advisories as an example.

"We should be able to achieve greater successes individually and collectively by ensuring stronger and sustained cooperation in intra-regional tourism development among Asian countries. This could include information and technology sharing, regular consultations, and twinning arrangements to complement each other. Our countries have their own distinctive tourism attractions and products to offer. Therefore, while we engage in healthy competition we should also promote positive complementation. This should ultimately prove to be mutually beneficial to all of us," he said.

The tourism industry proves to be one of the largest industries around the world, withstanding economic downturn, SARS epidemic, and terrorism problems in 2003.

DoT reports show that international tourist arrivals in the Philippines registered a 32 percent increase as of June compared to the same period last year. Projections are placed at 2.4 million tourist arrivals by the end of 2004, estimated to generate as much as $2 billion in tourism receipts. This means additional jobs to as many as half a million Filipinos.

To meet projections, the Department has mapped out strategies that would establish strong ties with the private sector in coming up with a balanced and focused marketing and product development program.

The DoT is also working closely with stakeholders in facilitating a number of community-based programs that would benefit the marginalized sector of society. These programs involve skills and knowledge training, dialogues, and cooperative loans.