UNSOLICITED ADVICE

In the wake of yesterday's tragic hostage taking of Hong Kong tourists by a former policeman, much outrage and finger-pointing has happened. Yours truly has been one of the most vigorous posters on social networks last night, venting the frustration, anger and disappointment that comes with such an incident.

As usual, tourism will be the one of the first industries to feel the backlash of yesterday's event. The fallout has already begun with the Hong Kong government issuing a Black Alert for the Philippines which basically tells all Hong Kong travellers to avoid the Philippines. Arrivals from that market have remained strong in past years and with this development, Philippine tourism takes another step backwards.

What happened yesterday can be attributed to a lot of factors and I think it has been discussed ad nauseaum and would be useless to discuss here. We've all become armchair quarterbacks, me included, and have offered various theories on what should have been done. We can all that discuss that until we're blue in the face but the more important task facing the tourism industry now is planning its recovery from this latest setback.

Call me presumptous but as the title of this post is says, I want to give some unsolicited advice on how it can be done. Perhaps this is my way of dealing with what happened and hopefully, my small contribution as to how we can overcome the situation.

1. We must impress upon our markets that this was an isolated event and not an everyday occurence in the Philippines.

Any way one looks at yesterday's events will agree that it did not look good at all. In fact, it was a showcase of incompetence by many sides - be it the police, media, government and plain bystanders. But all that considered, this government, whether through the Department of Tourism or Department of Foreign Affairs or any other department, must continously reiterate that the hostage-taking of tourists is not a regular happening in the Philippines.

While I understand the Hong Kong government's issuance of its Black Alert against the Philippines, it was a knee-jerk reaction seeing that it was Hong Kong nationals that were affected. I cannot recall, at least in recent memory, major crimes committed against Hong Kong tourists on a regular basis which would legitimately justify the issuance of a Black Alert. It must be explained to the Hong Kong government that their nationals are not being singled out as a people to commit crime on.

The DOT should now formulate a statement reassuring our major markets that this incident is not representative of the overall peace and order situation in the country. Similar tragedies have occurred in other countries and has sadly become a fact of life. The Philippines is no different than London where bombs go off on the Underground, or Egypt where tourists were shot while touring the pyramids or Bangkok where malls were burned in anti-government protests. It was just unfortunate that it was our turn this time around.


2. The law-enforcement agencies must have a protocol for handling these kinds of situations especially when foreign nationals are involved.

As evidenced by yesterday's televised siege of the bus, our law-enforcement agencies looked every bit the amateurs while trying to resolve the situation. It was doubly more painful knowing that foreigners, tourists at that, were involved. It was quite obvious that the police and other agencies that were there were woefully prepared for this sort of a situation. The relevant government agencies must go back and look into the formulation of protocols and procedures that will address these kinds of situations and geared towards peaceful resolution and with the least amount of casualties inflicted.

They must have the proper training to deal with these situations. Our policemen and special forces have trained with some of the best law-enforcement agencies in the world and it baffles me why can't that training be applied when the actual situation arises?

Doubtless, some law-enforcement agencies will insist that procedures were being followed. However, as the millions of people watching television last night will attest, those procedures were obviously not in use.


3. DOT and tourism private sector must now embark on damage control efforts to minimize whatever effects the hostage-taking incident might have on other markets.

In the past, the DOT and the private sector worked hand-in-hand in getting the country's image back on track. We went on short sales missions to our main markets and made presentations to assuage any doubts that they may have about the Philippines. We went door to door on sales calls to our clients just to assure them that the country was safe.  Hotels, resorts and tour operators came up with special rates just to make clients offers they couldn't refuse. Media from many countries were invited for familiarization trips to show them that the Philippines was a viable destination for tourists.

If nothing else, the tourism industry is a resilient bunch but we will need the help of the government, through the Department of Tourism to get us back to snuff. And it goes without saying that it will take a considerable amount of resources to make this happen.

Being in the industry for almost twenty years, I've seen my fair share of things that have affected tourism and our incredible ability to stand up and dust ourselves off. As much as what happened at the Quirino Grandstand was tragic and sad, I believe that we will be able to rise up again and slowly recover from this. It may not happen tomorrow, or the day after or even the month after but we've done it before and we can do it again.