The Government of the Philippines is currently working on new legislation to create an “Immigration Superbody” that will help make it easier for foreigners to visit the Philippines. Here we go again…
Actually, it is not hard to visit the Philippines now, from the standpoint of immigration. In fact, the Philippines, to my knowledge, has one of the most liberal policies in the world in terms of the ease of visiting, how long you can stay here, etc. I mean, from most any developed country, you don’t even need to obtain a Visa to visit the Philippines and stay up to 30 days. When the 30 days is up, you can also extend your visa every 59 days for up to 16 months without a need to leave the country. How many countries can you visit for up to 16 months without even obtain a Visa in the first place? Not many that I am aware of.
OK, so according to news reports that I have read about this, it is still relatively unclear of exactly what this is. The reports say that a new agency will be created that will “institutionalize policies and procedures” to help make it easier for foreigners to visit the country for the purpose of “fostering investments, trade and commerce, cultural and scientific activities, tourism and international understanding.” Wow. What in the heck does that mean? Basically, the way I read it, they will create a new body to do exactly what the Bureau of Immigration does today. The purposes given for visiting are no different than anybody has for visiting already.
Now, at the beginning of this article, I said that it is already easy to visit the Philippines, in terms of immigration. However, in other terms, visiting the Philippines is very difficult as it stands today. However, from what I can tell, any new “Superbody” would have no impact on fixing the problems that exist today that make it difficult to visit the Philippines.
The fact is, and I have written about this many times in the past on my various websites, in terms of domestic travel via sea or air, and for hotel availability, it is very, very difficult for a foreign tourist to navigate the Philippines. Very few hotels in the country have the ability for a visitor to go on the Internet and book a room, pay for it online and such. In fact, very few hotels even have a website. Foreigners who want to visit the Philippines are often at a loss of where to stay, or even how to visit a place like Davao or some other area outside of Manila. How do I know this? Because I operate a lot of different websites about the Philippines, and I get dozens of e-mails from foreigners all over the world who can’t figure out how to get where they want to go, or how to find a hotel that might be suitable for them.
The Philippine Department of Tourism has it’s own websites to promote tourism in the country. Notice I said Websites, instead of Website. Yes, they have a lot of different websites, and none of them are complete. Instead of operating a half dozen different sites, the Department of tourism should really focus on a single website, and make it complete. The Department of Tourism should be working with Hotels around the country to help them become proficient at using the Internet to attract people to stay at their place, or even to let the prospective visitors know about what hotels are available.
In this Internet Age that we live in, this is all a very basic concept, a very, very basic task that should have been done ten years ago or more. Compare Thailand and the Philippines. For somebody who wants to visit Thailand, it is very easy to go online and in two hours or less they can plan their entire itinerary for a trip, book their various domestic travels, book their hotel rooms and such. Two hours, the entire two week trip is all planned, paid for, and just waiting to go. For the same tourist who wants to visit the Philippines, they could spend a week online, and still could not book their trip. I am sorry to say that, but it is simply true.
What the Philippines needs to do, in my opinion is to concentrate on helping people be able to visit the country easily by doing “tourist” type things, instead of changing the Government instituations. Like I said earlier, news reports are unclear about exactly what this new “Superbody” will change, and perhaps it will be a good thing. But, from the first look, it seems like something unnecessary to me.
Bob
Have you thought of a way to capitalize on the RP lack of being user friendly. Maybe start some kind of middleman type of reservations business where you get $$ from a client via Paypal etc make the reservations locally and tack on a fee for your services. Im sure there must be a market for this.
Hi Neal – It is something that I have thought about for a number of years. I don’t think it is that viable, though, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I am just a single person and don’t know all the hotels in every area of the Philippines. I know all the hotels in my local area, and a few other areas, but this would be a hurdle. I believe it could be overcome, but other reasons make it less viable.
Secondly, the normal way of doing this sort of thing is for the hotel to pay a commission, not for the price to be tacked on to the reservation. In my attempts to do this locally, hoteliers have been like a brick wall, refusing to pay even a small amount for the reservation. They are happy to get more customers, but are unwilling to pay for it. My experience talking to people is that they would not like the idea of having a “service fee” tacked on to the room charge.
I doesn’t make business sense for a hotel to sit on empty rooms vs having more rooms booked, pay a small commission, with a end result of more gross income.???
But hey if that is the Filipino way I guess you cant and wont change them.
I disagree, I think that a customer would be willing to pay a fee, and have the security of knowing that reservations are set in stone. But the fee that you would have to charge to make it profitable for your time may be the problem.
Hi Neal – You are correct, it makes no business sense to us. To businessmen here, it’s just the standard way they work. I don’t understand it, and never will.
As far as an “add on fee” I think you’d be surprised at how resistant people are. Maybe like $1 or so, no more. I would be looking for a percentage, and for each night of the booking, otherwise it would not make sense. I mean for $1 or $2, I couldn’t even afford to make a phone call and spend 1 minute on the thing.
Hi Bob, I totally agree with you on this. The system seems so disjointed
Why doesn’t the Dept. of Tourism organize seminars (linked to their one tourism site} in every major city and resort areas to teach hoteliers and larger resort owners how to effectively set up their websites to make them more user friendly. Also, Dave Starr’s peeve about how you can never get anyone to write back to emails, and if you can reach someone by phone, it’s often confusing and frustrating to make reservations and get information about rooms, pricing etc. Another thing that I’ve seen in our area of Cebu there are some high-end resorts nearby in the province that you can book on-line for reservations, but the prices are three times what they would be if you walk in and book your reservations.
I know I have no head for business, but as you stated there must be simpler way.
Hi queenie – You sure are right about prices for Internet bookings! They rake you over the coals if you book online! You know, only rich foreigners use the internet, and they won’t care about high prices anyway! 😯
The whole ‘can’t book or pay on line’ thing is also one of my pet peeves! After taking a couple trips to Thailand I realized what a mess Philippine tourism is in. Exactly as you said, booking in Thailand was a dream, and everything was smooth when we got there! But them we booked for a nice lookingplace place online in Manila… made reservations; non-smoking room, two months in advance. Arrived to find it was not available, the air-con sounded like a cement mixer and there was 3 minutes of hot water per shower. Heavy sigh. I live here. I know the good places in our city but I really hesitate to make trip plans to see the rest of the Philippines beause it is difficult to plan the trip and then it is a gamble as what you will get. Trip Advisor might help…
Hi AmericanLola – The problem with somebody like TripAdvisor is that they are operating with even less information than people like you and I have. The DoT doesn’t send out any info to anybody, so people like you and I that live here know more than travel agencies do!
Hi American Lola and Bob,
After lots of researching, I booked rooms online through the Agoda website. I had no problems with the room reservation. I used the online booking for Plantation Bay on Mactan Island Cebu on my first trip.
Hi Jack – For an expensive resort like Plantation Bay… yes, you can book that online. But that is not really what I am talking about. I’m talking about a mid-price range hotel, in small towns, etc.
Good catch, Bob. I missed the announcement of the ‘superbody’. *sigh*. yet another aspect of the government simply ‘not getting it’. I agree with you that the visa and immigration system is really not that difficult at all. Some my remember I did a three or 4 part series on this here a few months back.
The problem is visibility. When you go to common travel planning/air ticket sale sites, you typically can’t even find many of the Philippines most well know attractions. It’s strictly a matter of Philippine businessmen finding out how people plan their travel these days and getting themselves (often at no cost, into the listings). Yet another government agency is unlikely to solve much.
And to Neal … well, you are welcome to try such a business model … providing a service by tacking on fees … but as Bob says, with my ten plus years helping people get to the Philippines, etc., I feel there is very little chance of it working. Many past visitors rant and rave about 10 pesos some taxi driver overcharged them years ago, and numerous other perceived financial injustices. If you wanted to make such a tourism/traveler’s service business model work, it’s my belief you have to find a way to get your profit from some other source … very few people are going to agree to any add on fee.
Hi Dave – I’ve been seeing several more articles about the “superbody” in the past day or so, but I still don’t really understand what it is all about. None of the articles that I can find really spell out what it is, only that it’s going to help! Ha ha… circular logic.
I fully agree with what you said to Neal. Foreigners visiting here are very conscience when it comes to money. They come here expecting to get ripped off, and they watch closely. If a guy makes an honest mistake when giving change, and short changes them 25 centavos it’s an “A HA” moment, and the foreigner suddenly has a good story about how he was “almost ripped off by those dirty cheating Filipinos.” I hate it with a passion.
Dave/Bob
I do think that travelers would be up for paying a fee, if the felt that they were getting a good service, BUT this may be only a small percentage of travelers which may not be profitable.
Rest assured I am not willing to leverage my TSP Balance on this business adventure/misadventure. Its easier to continue my mind numbing job of humping mail lol.
Hi Neal – I worked for 5 years very hard to do something like this. People would not pay. If you could get them to pay, more power to you.
Bob;
I said before, it’s all the fault of the Y2K bug, it keeps those Hotels off line. And God help us anytime any government decides to make things better!
Hi Paul – 😉
I have first hand experience of the booking of a hotel debacle. I came to Cebu nearly two years ago, only to find that my confirmed hotel rooms unavailable at more than one hotel or the prices rose significantly, 1,000’s of dollars unavailable on my credit cards for the hotels I thought were confirmed and no explanation from the hotel who was in my room. Fortunately, I was able to get the money back on my cards once I returned home. But, by then, the damage was done.
Lesson learned, never book a hotel online and never come on a holiday as rooms are unavailable, ATMs down or out of cash and the businesses come to a screeching halt, especially during Holy Week. Not good for a poor foreigner who has to watch every peso to ensure he can at least eat for the week.
Also, when I tried to book a flight online to a neighboring island, nothing doing. Apparently, the Philippines does not take credit cards over the internet starting back in Sept./Oct. 2007.
If I didn’t love the Philippines so much, I’d never come back. Bob, I don’t understand why you said there is no visa requirement to come there. Maybe, I am naive to the immigration system, because they surely stamped my visa inside my passport upon entry, when my 21 days are up and stamp again when I departed the country.
If I sound angry, I am, but, indeed, I do love the Philippines.
Thanks,
Ed
Hi Ed – I know all about it.. heard the stories many times and experienced many of these things myself.
What they stamped in your passport, if you go back and re-read, should have been a “Visa Waiver.” Getting a Visa is something you do before the trip at the Embassy in your home country. I suspect you came here without visiting the Embassy, right? You can stay up to 21 days without getting any Visa in advance, under the Visa Waiver program.
Interesting enough I am going thru the process right now, our usual Manila hotel u can book online but…if wife calls cousin in Manila and HE books it for us its almost $20 USD less per night. You can book Cebu Pacific online and even get a confirmation number, but gee they don’t tell you they don’t accept credit cards,no no no they like to torture you with 1-1/2 hour wait in line for the clerk to tell you “sorry Mr. King we don’t accept credit cards can we reschedual you on tommorows flight”!!! As my mental circuit breakers start popping !!PAL from now on mates!!If the RP ever figures out how to become efficient you’d see their GNP (Gross National Profit) go up 30% !! I knew a guy who had a little cantina on Bohol…he had a sign hanging onver bar: ” Welcome to the Philppines…an excercise in patience”
Bob you have enough connections perhaps a travel service specific to Davao?
Hi Brian- The things that you are talking about are all things I’ve been hearing for years now. Surely, if I’ve heard of all of these so frequently, the Department of Tourism must know about them, but they never do anything to actually fix them. Wouldn’t it seem like some savvy businessman would make sure that his business was the only one who actually did stuff correctly. He’s make a killing.
Me? I’m afraid it’s a battle I really don’t want to fight. It would be work! 😆 I hate that 4 letter word! 😉
Hi Bob,
From my limited experience of online bookings,i find:
Some of the smaller hotels operated by foreigners,use a central booking agency overseas.
However,when you book through the agency,the agency takes 10% per night over the normal room charge as a deposit(although you would not realize it at the time),this of course is their commission.
This commission can understandably upset a lot of people,as you can save the 10% by booking direct,if that option were available.
For most people they only realise this after they have arrived,of course then its to late.
regards Chas.
Hi chasdv – Your statement is exactly what I was talking to Neal about. People don’t like that added surcharge. If the hotel would kick a commission to the person making the booking, that’s all fine and good, but I have personally been unable to make that happen.
Hi Bob – Here I was thinking your article was going to be about another Ms. Philippines contest. Seems as though the number of these contests are proportional to the number of government boards and services to help tourism. 😉
Oh well, disappointment on both issues. 😆
Oh my Paul… I aim to please, but it is clear to me that I have left many in disappointment with the title on this article! I can perfectly understand your expectations! 😉
Bob, I would agree with you, that the Philippines already have a great and flexible Visa and Immigration System, at least compared to other Asian countries. I wish, Indonesia would come up with something similar than what Pinas has right now, instead of their very cumbersome and bureaucratic visa process.
On top of the mentioned difficulties to book rooms or hotels in advance, I would say another major problem for the Philippines is its lack of positive PR. Where you have ‘Malaysia truly Asia’, ‘Amazing Thailand’ and ‘Incredible India’ running on all international TV channels day in and day out, I’ve yet so see anything comparable from the Philippines.
A global marketing campaign would improve already a lot and would divert from the natural catastrophes and terrorist killing/kidnap/horror stories which occur only in small pockets in the country, but naturally occupy the headlines about Pinas currently.
However, that won’t stop me from coming back again and again, hopefully end of February I will even have a chance to visit Davao also……
Cheers!
Hi Chris – Great to hear from you! Actually, about 8 years ago the Philippines used to have an international TV campaign too. They called it WowPhilippines! And their website was WowPhilippines.com.ph – A few months later I noticed that the URL “WowPhilippines.com” was not taken, so I bought it! The Dept of Tourism tried to buy it from me, but they would not pay me what I thought it was worth, so I still own it and operate a pretty successful business on the site. Shortly after they failed to buy the URL from me, they gave up on the advertising, and never really came up with anything to replace it, unfortunately.
Hey, I’ll be looking forward to finally meeting you next month then! Take care, Chris.
I agree with their need to do more International Advertising,but they need to upgrade the Tourism Infrastruture first.
regards Chas.
Hi chas – Indeed, there are just so many things that need to be done. Unfortunately, this “superbody” is not one of them, in my opinion.
It has to be because they are all avoiding TAX wherever they can. there is no shortage of internet professionals or connectivity. Your point here Bob is spot on. Yet again they are going to waste a heap of pesos on achieving zilch while an obvious improvement goes to waste. What a load of carp! Having understood that the PI is a multi layered pyramid scheme with only the bottom level practicing ‘ethics’ this does not surprise me at all.
Hi Barry – Unfortunate but true, I think. A lot of money will be wasted on this, and not much accomplished.
I have found many of the online travel websites like the one mentioned above are really not much more than accumilation of information that can be found in many places on the internet. The reviews by those that have been there can often be misleading as things can change from the time any particular review was written. As the reviews are posted by individuals the information is speculation or experience by the individual at the time of their visit. Things can change.
For a website or tourist website to be worthwhile it would have to be constantly updated, not an easy task for anyone to do.
Although it seems we live in an ” Online ” world today, I still make reservations and bookings the way I did before the internet revolution, whenever possible. I use an experienced travel agent for booking flights ( and he can often even beat website prices ). In booking hotels, if they do have a website I may use it but not totally trust the booking to the website. I book in advance but not too far in advance, I will use the phone, regardless of the cost of the phone call, I also send a conventional ” snail Mail ” letter confirming my reservation request, followed by another : snail Mail ” letter to arrive at the hotel about a week before my arrival.
You would be surprised just how much ” Impact ” a conventional letter sent through the Postal Service still has these days !
The only time I had difficulty so far in a hotel booking in The Philippines was not the fault of the hotel. A hotel in Cagayan De Oro I wanted to stay in a couple of days ahead of my departure for home, I did not make a reservation ahead of time. The hotel was booked with a convention. I went to what you might call a more local tourist kind of hotel. I found it not all that satisfactory although the hotel did try to remedy any deficiency I pointed out to them ( no toilet seat, air con just barely working, broken telephone ) , The following day while looking for an ATM that would work with my card, I spotted the Region 10 Dept. of Tourism so I thought I would stop in. I met the Regional Director Mr. Catalino E. Chan III. He asked me where I was staying and when I told him he advised me to relocate to an ” accredited Hotel ” as the one I was in was not accredited with the Board of Tourism. When I mentioned the one I had originally wanted to stay in but I had not made a reservation. Mr. Chan asked if I would like to change to something better than where I was and I said yes. A quick phone call and I was ” booked ” into one of the better hotels in CDO, and one that I have been back to since then as well ! When I walked into the hotel, I told the desk clerk Mr. Chan had sent me, WoW what a welcome I got from that hotel !
Mr. Chan advised me for the future, as a visitor / tourist, it would be to my advantage to always stay in a hotel accredited by the board of tourism as if there is any problem or discrepency his office would be there to assist. I considered that to be the most helpful advice from my visit to the Region 10 Board of Tourism.
Another thing I found is that Hotel Websites may not always be up to date. A hotel may even abandon one website, have another one created for them and not remove their former website. This can often cause some confusion, especially if you try to book online to the former website. Your booking will never reach the hotel !
If you know where you will be looking for a Hotel, it may be worthwhile to contact the Board of Tourism for that region. I found the one for Region 10 in Mindanao just by accident while looking for an ATM, and found it was most worthwhile stopping in there.
My many thanks to Mr. Catalino E. Chan III , regional director of the Department of Tourism Region 10 in Cagayan De Oro.
Hi Bob – Interesting thoughts and information.
I guess the best way to visit PI, is by visiting family. In fact the only people I saw visiting Laoag, were people from Hawaii and California. I guess the gov. is content with balikbayans, which is a real shame. There is many things to see and do in PI.
Hi Jay – Yes, and I have said and written about this many times. Really, about the only people traveling to the Philippines are Balikbayans. Filipinos abroad, and their families. The Philippines should go for more tourists than that. Heck, to be honest, balikbayans are not really even tourists… they mostly don’t stay at hotels, eat out at restaurants and such.
Bob
It just clicked in my head with what you just said.
Balikbayans are pretty much the only people traveling to the Phil.
You would know if anyone does, and come to think of it I do not recall any conversation with anyone(aside from the Military era)(or worse yet the sex trade industry around Angeles)that ever has traveled to the Phil unless they had some family/Wife ties there.
So now I can see how some type of Hotel reservsaion business for a fee would flop.
Exactly, Neal. The number of real tourists who come here is minuscule. And, those that do come mostly don’t want to pay even a few pesos for help. It makes the idea of tacking on a surcharge almost impossible.
Based on the forgoing articles i have to recommend a Davao real estate agent for employment with the Dept of Tourism .
I had asked her whether a specific sub – division in Davao has public transport and what was available for tv and internet connections . She answered the transport question but never got back about the other two items .
Maybe she called the Dept of Tourism ? 🙂
Ha ha ha… not really a surprise, Alan!
Hi, Bob!
Yes, here we go again! Our govt. is putting up another “body” without setting up any clear objectives and how will it interact with the already existing govt. agencies we have particularly the Dept. of Tourism and the Bureau of Immigration. It will only certainly create more bureaucracies and inefficiencies in promoting our country as a tourist and foreign investment destination. Indeed what our govt. needs to do is to streamline all of their policies and objectives and also improve our Tourism infrastructure and marketing strategies. For instance, the govt. can look at the results of the Annual Tourism Competitiveness report by the World Economic Forum and see what can be improved from there. The Philippines has so much to offer to visitors, and Filipino hospitality is world-renowned. We have to take advantage of this by upgrading the over-all infrastructure, minimize inefficiencies in the bureaucracy, make hassle-free policies and formulate more aggressive marketing strategies such as taking advantage of the Net!
Hi JR – I totally agree with your goals of what the country should do. Unfortunately, sometimes the Government seems to do the opposite!
Unfortunately, sometimes the Government seems to do the opposite!
THATS A SHOCKING REVELATION!!!!!!!!!!!!:)
Hi brian – 😉