THE violence in Mindanao and the declaration of martial law brought about by the clash between government forces and the Maute Group in Marawi City will certainly have a negative impact on the tourism industry, an official said.
But it will not affect the Information Technology/Business Process Outsourcing (IT/BPO) industries in Cebu, said Jose Mari Yu, Cebu City’s “pointman” for business and economic development.
He said that even if the terror-stricken area is just in one part of the country, tourists will still view it as the entire Philippines.
“Tourism will definitely be affected. For how long and how bad, I don’t know,” he said.
“In tourism, there is always an alternative. Instead of coming to the Philippines, because there is chaos, tourists will have many alternatives. The alternatives may even be better than us,” he added.
Yu, who headed the now defunct Cebu Investment Promotions Center, said other countries in Southeast Asia like Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam also appeal to a lot of tourists.
A lot of people even say that Thailand may even be a better tourism destination choice than the Philippines even without the country’s current peace and order problems, he added.
But while the tourism sector may have been affected by the problem in Mindanao, Yu said it won’t have any effect on Cebu’s IT/BPO industry.
The IT/BPO sector has been a major economic driving force in Cebu as more companies invested in the province and its people.
Yu explained that IT/BPO companies in Cebu and other parts of the country do not have a direct presence in the country. They only have two or three foreign executives that manage their firms.
Some, he said, are even purely managed by locals.
And unlike in tourism, Yu said the Philippines is the only destination for IT/BPO investors in this part of Asia.
“But in IT/BPO, there’s no real alternative to the Philippines in Southeast Asia. The other thing is there is no direct presence of investors in IT/BPO.
They just hire one or two. Dili g’yud maapektuhan (It really won’t be affected),” Yu said.
Tourism in Cebu is expected to continue experiencing the negative impact of the Marawi City siege and the declaration of martial law in Mindanao.
Several hotels and resorts in Cebu and Bohol have already reported cases of tourists canceling their bookings due to the ongoing terrorist problems in Marawi City.
President Rodrigo Duterte has also brought up the possibility of extending martial law in the Visayas and Luzon.
Just last Saturday, officials from the United Kingdom advised their citizens against travelling in the western and central parts of Mindanao. This is seen to worsen the decline that is already being experienced by the tourism industry.
For Yu, there’s no other way to solve this dilemma but for government authorities to eliminate the terror threats in Mindanao.
“Solve the problem as fast as possible. Assure the people that the threat in Mindanao has been eradicated. That’s the only thing they can do,” Yu said.
“In other words, they have to restore confidence among the tourists and everybody else that peace and stability has been restored in Mindanao,” he added.