CEBU CITY, July 19 (PIA) — The Tourism Congress of the Philippines (TCP), the national organization of tourism enterprises created by virtue of the Tourism Act of 2009, embarked on a series of consultative workshops on the ASEAN integration, July 19-20 at the Marco Polo hotel in Lahug, Cebu City.
This is the first of a series of nationwide consultative meetings dubbed as "Tourism Integration Briefing and Consultative Meeting.”
TCP President Rosanna Tuason-Fores said the ASEAN Tourism Integration ‘Briefing and Consultative Meeting’ aims to contribute to the preparation of the Philippine Tourism Roadmap for AEC 2015 and Beyond, in support to the ASEAN initiative.
The key objectives of the consultative meetings are to increase the awareness level of the implications of the economic integration to tourism enterprises particularly the small and medium enterprises; to identify market access opportunities for business in the Philippines and other ASEAN economies.
Fores added that the series of consultative meetings seek to come up with important inputs to the roadmap of the Philippine Tourism in AEC 2015 and Beyond that is being jointly prepared by the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
The USAID Advancing Philippine Competitiveness or COMPETE Project supports the activity.
Fores said, the ASEAN integration will have more impact to smaller and medium enterprises not only in terms of competitiveness but also in terms of manpower.
"With the opening up of the market, will we be able to compete with our more advantaged neighbors?” she asked.
According to Fores, this is just some of the issues that will be looked into in these series of consultative meetings. There is a need to mitigate any adverse effects brought about by the integration,” Tuason-Fores stated.
DOT assistant secretary Rolando Canizal discussed the regional and Philippine initiatives in relation to the ASEAN Strategic Tourism Action Plan 2011-2015.
Asec Canizal emphasized on the need to enhance connectivity to and from and within the Visayas region.
The other speakers include B/gen Rodante Joya of CAAP, former NEDA Secretary Cielito Habito and currently Chief of Party of the USAID TRADE project, and Dr. Mario Lamberte, former President of the Philippine Institute of Development Studies and of the ADB Institute in Tokyo and now Team Leader on SME Access to Financing of the USAID-COMPETE Project.
ASEAN groups the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Brunei. The ten member countries will establish a single market economy by 2015 to attract more investments and facilitate intra-ASEAN trade and investments.
The next consultative meetings will be held on July 23-24 at the Waterfront Hotel in Davao City; August 12-13 in Clark, Pampanga and will end in Manila also sometime in September.//
