3Improving Tourism Institutional Governance and Human Resource Capacities
As indicated in the analysis of the existing situation, the responsibilities of the national government agencies—particularly the DOT—and the LGUs needs to be clarified, and the respective roles strengthened to ensure effective coordination and application of resources. In the human resources area, the capacity of the tourism education and training system (although substantial) continues to turn out graduates that do not have the required skills for entry level positions, while employers in some areas adopt employment and service charge distribution practices that discourage the development of a well-motivated and highly productive tourism workforce. Finally, the handling of tourists on arrival and departure at international airports remains problematic, while at the tourist destination center level in the LGUs, the ability of local officials to provide security, safety, order, and protect tourists from exploitation remains weak.
This program is intended complement the access and connectivity infrastructure and destination and product development and marketing strategies by strengthening the “soft” components of the Philippine Tourism Product – tourism institutions/organizations and human resources – that tie together the hard elements of the tourist destination such as infrastructure, facilities, and amenities.
»Building Tourism Institutions
»Sustainable Human Resources Development
»Strengthened Tourism Governance Functions and Services
Objectives
The key objectives of the program are:
»strengthen existing institutional roles and arrangements between National Government and Local Government Units for the planning, development, marketing and regulation of tourism;
»ensure a sustainable supply of highly competent, well-motivated and productive tourism workforce for the national and local tourism sectors; and
»improve governance in the areas of safety, security, environment, tourist area orderliness, and in dealing with tourists, and tourism enterprises at the national and local levels.
The implementation of these strategic programs will help to improve coordination and convergence of scarce resources and action between the DOT and the LGUs, lead to a more competent, well-motivated and productive tourism workforce, and help off-set the adverse advisories by achieving a better image of the Philippines as a destination to visit. The program is proposed to be implemented through three sub-programs as follows:
Building Tourism Institutional capabilities involving: (i) strengthening the Institutional roles, responsibilities, and the management structure for tourism of the DOT, LGUs and the private sector for coordinated tourism development; (ii) Strengthening Tourism Policy Formulation Approaches; and (iii) Strengthening DOT support for LGUs.
Sustainable Human Resources Development involving: (i) Skills Capability Building, (ii) Improving Labour Relations, (iii) Professional Tourism Training and Education, and (iv) HR Recognition, Networking and Development.
Strengthened Tourism Governance Functions and Services involving: (i) promoting transparency and host community participation; (ii) improving governance of relations between frontline staff and tourists; and (iii) establishing a tourism crisis management unit.
3.1Institutionalize Roles and Responsibilities of DOT and LGUs
Description of the program
The Program focuses on the need to launch a process to coordinate all the players who have any kind of effect on tourism, something to be done through the design of a Global Governance System for the management of tourism at a country level.
The creation of a Global Governance and Management Structure for Tourism Development in the Philippines responds to the previously designed strategic framework, which should be placed under the responsibility of the Department of Tourism (DOT) to make it happen.
DOT should take the responsibility to set up and impulse the Integrated Tourism Governance and Management system at national/ regional/ provincial/ local levels with the collaboration and support of:
»DOT secretary, undersecretaries and directors, as well as regional DOT offices
»National Tourism Coordination Council members and all relevant public sector entities affecting tourism
»Provincial governors, cities and municipalities throughout the country
»Tourism Congress members as well as relevant tourism associations
»Representatives of the civil society
As described in the strategic framework, the Tourism Governance System is designed at national, regional, provincial and local scope on both strategic and operational levels.
As mentioned in the strategic approach, the following framework is proposed as the ideal governance and management framework to develop tourism in the Philippines, and thus the present Governance Action Plan has been designed accordingly.
Objectives
The Action Plan objectives for setting up a Global Governance system for the development of Tourism in the Philippines are as follows:
»Ensure that there is an integrated organization framework to put in place all actions defined and described in the Action Plan
»Consider synergies between the different organization needs in order to optimize resources and reach maximum efficiency
»Conceive an integrated geographical governance and management framework at national, regional, provincial and local levels
»Ensure that there are mechanisms in place to combine a strategic, long-term and sustainable vision, and, at the same time, provide the operational tools to implement the vision and strategic decisions.
Proposed Subprograms and Projects
3.3.1StrengtheningTourism Governance Structure
Description and Projects / Time Frame»Project 1: Constitute and Strengthen the Tourism Advisory and Consultative Body
The aim of the strategic level is to strengthen the Tourism Advisory and Consultative Bodies by integrating all three-representative groups (National Tourism Coordination Council, Tourism Congress and Regional Tourism Congresses) and to promote their contribution into tourism policies.
Member partners should have a seat in the body and participate in the consultation and contribute to the decision-making processes. The number of members should not exceed 15, in order to make meetings manageable, being composed of permanent and non-permanent members according to the discussed issue and the grade their attendance is required.
Main partners suggested to be members of the Tourism Consultation Body within one of the three pre-defined structures are:
-Permanent members: appointed representative from primary tourism stakeholders such as DOT, Tourism Congress, TIEZA, TPB, NEDA, etc.
-Non-permanent members: appointed representative from non-direct tourism stakeholders whose contribution is extremely important but only required occasionally (DILG, DENR, DPWH, etc.) – including civil society groups. The involvement of those non-permanent members at the Board is crucial due to the strong (positive or negative) effects their activity has into tourism.
The NTCB would establish working committees along the lines of its key functions such as competitiveness, marketing and promotion, sustainable planning and development, tourism infrastructure, etc.; and be supported by DOT Secretariat. / Project 1:
Starting date: 2012
Implementation: continuous
»Project 2: Creating Tourism Councils/ Congresses at the regional, provincial and local levels
To make the governance system work, regional and provincial tourism councils play a key role in tourism governance. The regional level represents the link between national and local governance, where common concerns of neighboring provinces can be addressed in a coordinated and harmonized manner by the national agencies. In the absence of a regional government structure, the Regional/ Provincial Tourism Councils (RDCs) serve to coordinate the prioritization and implementation of key programs and projects that concern the provinces and chartered cities under each of the regions.
Within this framework, the DOT’s Regional Offices thus play a critical role in bridging the overarching national programs of DOT with the local tourism goals and concerns of the LGUs in their respective areas of assignment.
The Regional Tourism Congress should be strengthened and revitalized to institutionalize private sector participation in setting strategic tourism direction at the regional level. The Regional Tourism Congress (which could also function as the regional units of the Tourism Congress) should be mobilized to capture relevant feedback from regional stakeholders to be shared with the National Tourism Consultation Body for taking appropriate action at national and regional levels with the right priority scale.
The role of the councils/ congresses at a regional/ provincial/ local scale are:
-To raise regional issues and concerns to the national level
-To ensure their inputs are integrated into a global national programming and implementation
-To lead the implementation of the accreditation system in their respective Provinces
As with the national structure described earlier, a larger body of private sector members can form the regional Tourism Sub-Congress. However, for more efficient decision-making, a smaller core-group of representatives can be appointed or elected to form a Regional Tourism Council that can meet on a regular basis to make decisions on regional strategic concerns. These decisions, of course, must take into consideration the opinions of the Regional Sub-Congress that they are representatives of.
The following elements should be determined within this project:
-Members of the council/ congresses
-Participation and decision making mechanisms
-Voting specifications and share
-Frequency of meetings
-Funding sources / Project 2:
Starting date: August 2011
Implementation: Continuous until 2016 whenever vacancy arises
Lead Responsible / Strategic Partners
DOT
Provincial Governors
LGUs / Private sector at the national, regional, provincial and local level
TIEZA and TPB
Civil Society
NGOs
Destinations for Implementation
At a national/ regional/ provincial and local level
Estimated cost (PhP 000) / Potential Financing Sources
Project 1: 400.000
Project 2: 2.550.000 / National Government
Provincial Governments
Municipalities and City Councils
Multilateral organizations
Description of the program
3.3.2Strengthening Tourism Policy Formulation Approaches
Description and Projects / Time FrameSpecific issues will be particularly addressed which are crucial tools in the tourism policy formulation of the country:
» Lobbying and partnering tools as a crucial instrument to place tourism policy as a main national policy.
»Regulatory instruments for creating a legal framework addressed to strengthen capacity and scope of action.
»Financial instruments as different economic devices aimed at providing financial support to public and/ or private initiative in the tourism industry in general and hence strengthening stakeholder capacity from an economic point of view.
»Public-Private Partnership models in order to develop a portfolio of projects and initiatives where public-private partnerships are crucial for success in the Philippines tourism development.
Objectives: A set of different objectives are aimed to be achieved by the Program for Tourism Policy in the Philippines as a tourism destination:
» Reinforce the development of tourism activity and increase foreign currency revenue originating in tourism activity
»Foster and coordinate the participation of the private sector carrying out joint actions
»Plan the development of the destinations and regulate the subsectors
»Support the modernization and innovation of the tourist supply (companies, products, facilities, etc.)
»Project 1: : Political and public actors lobbying and partnering
Lobbying and partnering with other governmental and public stakeholders is crucial to place tourism policy as a main national policy of the Philippines. DOT should make a strong deal on creating networks, establishing connections and strategic partnerships with the President’s office, relevant governmental ministries, and other public sector institutions in order to boost tourism as a first priority of the country but also to maximize the department’s contribution to the development of the sector.
The issues where DOT should have further impact on are:
-Infrastructure planning, investments, sustainability, environmental policies, product development, etc.
-Getting from the government higher public investment for tourism implementation projects by also prioritizing implementation in terms of time frame.
To establish and reinforce a strategic relationship with all necessary public institutions in the country. Special consideration should be given to those ministries whose activity influences to a great extent the tourism sector, such as DENR and DPWH. This is to be done in order to streamline the organization and funding needs in view of the recommendations of the Master Plan. / Project 1:
Starting date: 2012
Implementation: continuous
»Project 2: Financial scheme development.
It is required to create a financial framework addressed to strengthen institutional capacity of public and private tourism stakeholders from an economic perspective with the aim of facilitating the development of tourism projects.
Therefore, a sustainable funding source for the implementation of the master plan during the next 5 years should be established. The master plan will not be enforced unless a critical mass of funding is provided by the public and the private sector as seed money for the major investments that need to be done in terms of:
-Road infrastructure to improve accessibility to destinations: create some new roads and improve maintenance of some existing ones, create or improve general directions and specific tourism sign posting.
-Setting up the enhanced DOT and TIEZA which means investments in facilities and equipment and contribution to staff expenses to support the initial years of operations.
-Support investments and most probably also the operational costs in the initial years of the man-made facilities to be built, if the private sector fails to make the investments needed to develop these facilities.
This is intended from a double perspective:
-Financial scheme for destination management organizations (DOT, TPB and TIEZA). While presently government is funding most of the activities undertaken by public tourism organizations (BTB), a new model should be conceived extending the funding sources in order to enlarge the scope of operations. Some of the suggested funding sources are:
- Governmental funding, subject to annual arrivals and expenditure
- Business tax
- Tourist/ Cruise tax
- Mandatory fees (licenses)
- Voluntary partnerships
- Self generated sustainable funds (product booking and merchandising)
- International funding from WB, ADB, etc.
- Corporate Social responsibility (CSR)
- Loans: provide loans through TIEZA or facilitate the provision of low interest loans through banks for tourism projects within the country.
- Subventions: for those projects where the public sector has a major role, provide subventions to projects that support the development of products and/ or destinations.
- Incentives: this is an essential aspect to foster development in those areas the public sector wishes to promote according to the master plan. Product or destination development in line with the master plan objectives should be clearly supported by implementing a favorable investment environment through fiscal incentives. Incentives for the use and the application of sustainable tourism criteria should also be incentivized.
- Tourism development fee for incoming tourist passengers by air and sea
- Tourism development tax for tourism operators
- Selling of property development rights, land lease/concessions
- Repayment of loans and interest of loans
- Multilateral grants/loans
- Contributions, donations, grants and aid agencies of all kinds
- Dividends or the sale of equity holdings and financial instruments
- Technical assistance: evaluation and qualification of investment projects, assistance to the private and public sector
Initially it is difficult to conceive that the private sector can participate in the funding of the Service Centers and in their operations, but funding from private sources should increase progressively. Additionally, established companies should contribute to covering the costs associated to the training of their staff or themselves as entrepreneurs.
Only awareness campaigns, programs and courses need to be funded 100% by the public sector until there is a successful development of tourism and a consolidated private sector.
As far as the business incubators services are concerned, the international experience shows that these services are mostly subsidized. However once again it is important that a small and affordable contribution is requested to the participants to make sure that they give some value to what they are receiving.
For the same purpose, it would be advisable to let know to the participants the real total costs of the training, awareness or technical assistance they are receiving. / Project 2:
Starting date: 2012
Implementation: continuous
»Project 3Public-Private Partnership Scheme development
It is required to develop a portfolio of projects and initiatives where public-private partnerships are crucial for success in the Philippines tourism development. Public sector role is to determine the most important projects having positive impacts where public-private cooperation is crucial for success. This role is proposed to be undertaken by TIEZA.
These should be undertaken in any of the following areas:
-Enhancement and management of large natural, cultural and man-made attractions
-Tourism facilities to be develop at the sites, as well as basic and transport infrastructure development.
-Structure, commercialize and control the quality of tourism products (based on activities combined or not with accommodation and other services).
-Transportation and/ or basic infrastructure development
Regarding the undertaking of medium or large investment and the management of man-made attractions, the best co-operation model needs to be identified depending on each case according to the proposed one at the strategic approach.