Philippines Adopts New Tourism Act, What About Thailand?

Posted: 16 Jun 2009 | 6:00 am

One of the regions fastest growing tourism market the Philippines has enacted the Tourism Act 2009 (RA 9593) which is a catalyst in it's ambition creating the number one destination in Asia; while further developing the Visayas region into a tourism hub. Reading the Act, it's clearly stated that tourism is indispensable to the national economy.

A reorganization of the Philippines Convention and Visitors Corporate (PCVC) into a Tourism Promotion Board (TVB) has been mandated. New tourist enterprise zones have been created in centers like Boracay, Cebu, Davao and Bohol. More then 500 million Philippine pesos have been appropriated over a 5 year timeline. Travel and airport tax will be linked into the funding pipeline.

It's a breath of free air for tourism to be recognized as a priority for the country and certainly what's been laid out is just as appropriate as what's required in Thailand. Cebu and Phuket have many similarities and using these as tourism hubs makes sense in the greater Phuket scenario. Funding tourism projects which remains unaddressed here, and using travel tax to promote tourism is rational. As our Asian neighbors wake up to the fact that stimulating the tourism machine required Government intervention hopefully more will be done for Phuket by the current Prime Minister.

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