Tourism Secretary Joseph “Ace” Durano has urged industry players to continue investing to keep pace and be competitive in this dynamic market.

Durano, who spoke at the closing of the two-day tourism forum “ National Dialogue on Enhancing Philippine Competitiveness: Tourism Act 2009,” said that investments poured into the industry in the past four years have resulted in the creation of 8,000 new rooms.

He attributed the growth of the industry to the continued investments by the private sector and the support of the government.

“We have to continue on this effort because the competitiveness landscape keeps on changing and the operationalization of the law next month is a tool that will keep pace with the market,” Durano said.

He cited how the joint partnership has “pumped up the volume of tourist traffic" into the country as the government helped create value for travel trade. The DOT has campaigned abroad for big travel wholesalers to include the Philippines in their product offerings.

For instance, the air aviation sector has added more seats making travel more enjoyable, convenient and cheap. Tour operators have also upgraded their products.

The non-traditional real estate developers have caught up with the growth and established connection with the industry by putting up developments for retirees and other tourist facilities.
“We have created value for travel,” he said and this resulted to increased traffic for the country from targeted markets posting triple digit in China and Korea.

“We crated value for them and better understanding on the value of tourism to the Filipinos,” he said.

He said the industry should continue investing and building its image as a serious sector as far as government is concern.
The two-day conference is set to produce a set of recommendations to the DOT as its input in the crafting of the IRR, which is due middle of next month.

Earlier, Ruy Moreno, executive director of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC), said that medical, health and wellness tourism would account for 20 to 25 percent of the $1 trillion tourism business.

“But to attain our target, we just have to compete in terms of policy framework to support our competitiveness,” Moreno said.
At present, the medical tourism revenues in the country are estimated between $200 to $300 million with 100,000 medical tourists. NCC has targeted to attract 200,000 medical tourists by 2012 also. Medical tourism was boosted when Malacanang issued an executive order in 2006 mandating the promotion of medical tourism program in the country.

“No competing country can provide the skills and capabilities that we have in the country,” he said.

To achieve these targets, Moreno stressed the need to come up with an IRR to the Tourism Act that would address all the address all the issues that hamper competitiveness in the industry.