Melo Villareal
Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Ramon Jimenez, along with former DOT secretaries Rep. Joseph “Ace” Durano, (former DOT secretary and) current Philippine Red Cross Chair Richard “Dick” Gordon, former DILG (and DOT) secretary Rafael Alunan III, and current President of Int’l School of Sustainable Tourism Mina Gabor, will make the five-man team of tourism experts to attend the Third Philippine Tourism Forum this September 3, 2015 at the SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia.
The Tourism Power of 5
The tourism forum, with the theme “The business of tourism: ASEAN and beyond”, is organized by the Philippine Tour Operators’ Association (PHILTOA) and will serve as an opening event for the upcoming Philippine Travel Mart 2015 the following days (September 4-6) at the same venue. The Philippine Travel Mart is the biggest annually-held exhibition that features well-known travel, tourism, and marketing firms.
“Tourism flourishes when enabling policies are in place to open gateways for visitors. Policy issues, the big picture, the private sector tourism agenda, the impact of national security, politics, disaster—all these are strategic inputs to enterprise tourism planning,” PHILTOA President Cesar Cruz said.
PHILTOA’s incoming Philippine Tourism Forum, which the five aforementioned DOT secretaries will attend, is expected to tackle and address the issues mentioned by Cruz.
Several tourism experts which include urban planner Architect Felino “Jun” Palafox, Philippine Representative to the ASEAN Business Advisory Council Jay Yuvallos, ASEAN Tourism Association President Aileen Clemente, and Isla Lipana-PricewaterhouseCoopers Managing Director Atty. Alexander Cabrera are expected to attend the forum as well.
3rd Philippine Tourism Forum
The organizers of the said event recognize the major role of the tourism industry in the economy of the Philippines. Through the upcoming chain of events, PHILTOA and its supporters hope to acknowledge and fix travel and tourism issues through the forum, and to build partnerships with the several travel and marketing firms to continue sustaining the tourism sector of the country.
Philippines, host of APEC 2015
Philippines is set to be the host country for this year’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meet. 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries are expected to participate in the APEC meet, and form the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in the country this December. The goal of the annually-held APEC, which is to provide opportunities for and exchanging ideas and probable innovations for a stable and balanced economic growth of its 21 member countries, comes parallel with PHILTOA’s events this September which also aim to further boost the tourism sector in the Philippines.
Aside from the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority, PHILTOA’s partners in building the nation’s tourism industry include Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), the ASEAN Business Advisory Council Philippines (ABAC Phils.), PricewaterhouseCoopers Philippines (PWC), and the Global Leadership Initiatives for Sustainable Tourism (GLIST).
