Q: As a renowned tourist destination country, in what areas do you think cooperation with international organizations such as IMTA can be pursued, to promote further openness, interaction, and collaboration in regional tourism?
A: 2 years ago, IMTA has already sent us an invitation to become a full member of the alliance. I could say that during that period, there wasａchange of administration because it was an election year in the Philippines. So until now, we're still awaiting for the approval of our full membership to the IMTA.
But nevertheless, every year IMTA has always invited the Philippines to become one of the countries to represent in the conference. And last year, one of our governors in the Philippines came over to deliver a speech, introduce one of the most famous mountains in the Philippines.
It is what we call the mountain, Mayon Volcano. It is the only volcano, by the way, in the world that has a perfect shape of ice cream cone. And that is why he was very proud. He was very delighted that, among the provinces in the Philippines, he was the one invited to come over.
Now, as far as the collaboration between the IMTA and Philippines is concerned, there are so many aspects of collaboration that we can speak with regards to the sustainable development of our mountains.
In the Philippines, we have endemic creatures that can only be found in the Philippines. This is very important for us, because it's not only a natural creature that can be found in the Philippines, but also a part of the Filipino culture. It is also part of the identity of the filipinos.
By continuing the existence of these creatures，we would be able to tell the world that we are proud that for so many years, these kind of creatures are still existing in the Philippines.
IMTA and the Philippines could come up with some programs for us to develop the conservation not only of our landscapes, but as well as the the existing creatures on those landscapes that we are still nurturing. So that the future generation would be able to see and feel, and be proud of that this is not only part of our identity as Filipinos, but part of our Filipino culture.
Q: The theme of IMTA Annual Conference 2024 is “Inclusiveness, Mutual Learning, Innovation - Empowering Sustainable Mountain Tourism with New Quality Productive Forces”, how can new quality productivity forces stimulate the creativity of mountain tourism?
A：Philippines could be one of the countries that could help in the global arena to promote mountain tourism. As I mentioned, it is already one of the products of the Philippines where we develop the culture of the people that lives in the mountain. Part of our identity as Filipinos is that we are people who are close to the mountains. Because they are places in our country that we can be proud of.
It is actually inscribed in the UNESCO heritage. As one of the UNESCO heritage sites like the mount banara, rice terraces, it's not only about the more than 2,000 years harvesting and cultivating the land for people there to live by planting rice, but it is also a showcase of how Filipinos are hard working people, a showcase of people loving Filipinos that we together innovate. Our resources are not only for our living, but also for tourism purposes.
Q: Mountain tourism is increasingly becoming a trend of tourism and a key driving force of the industry's growth. With the international tourism market recovering rapidly and regional cooperation deepening, how does your country enrich its mountain tourism product supply to adapt to the market changes and meet the needs of tourists?
A: If you look at the profile of our market in the Philippines, most of the people of travelers that visit our mountain resources are Europeans, probably because of the nature of the Europeans that they also have their mountains in their respective countries and they wanted to see what do we have in the Philippines. This is a segment that we continue to develop, not only for the European market, but also for the Asian markets.
For so many years, especially the shorthold markets, like China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Southeast Asian countries, would love to visit our beaches, because this is our primary product that we sell to the world. But other than the beautiful beaches that we have, we also have mountain resources that we are proud to promote to our market, like the Europeans and the Asian market,the the long haul and the short term markets.
Q: Do we have any tourism cooperation with Guizhou province now? Or in the future? What kind of corporations are you looking forward to the Guizhou province?
A: Actually, right now, we do not have any tourism cooperation with the province of Guizhou. As far as we are concerned, most of our cooperations are those that we used to have direct flights from different points in China to the Philippines. By the way, before pandemic, we even have launched the flight from Lanzhou, which is in the Gansu province to the Philippines.
So what I'm saying now is that now that the tourism is just recovering from the pandemic. The Philippines strategy is for us to resume the flights where we have in different points in China to the Philippines. Our focus now is to reconnect with the airlines and the charter operators who used to operate flights from different points in China to the Philippines.
Before pandemic, we know we never had flights coming from Guizhou province or Guiyang or Xingyi. Hopefully if pandemic would not be able to come in, then we would be able to spread more flights to different points in China, such as Guiyang or Xingyi.
Now in the future, maybe when we would be able to recover all these flights, then we would start renegotiating again with some of the cities that we do not have flights yet to the Philippines. There is a huge potential to bring market, not only from China to the Philippines, but from Philippines to China as well.
If you look at the geography of China, only the eastern part of China has sea water. And for 9 months of the year, you cannot enjoy the sea water because it's quite cold. Unlike in the Philippines, we only have two seasons, the rainy season and the dry season. So all year round, remember we have 7,641 island, you can enjoy swimming, snorkeling, diving, and whatever water activity in all of those islands that you can visit in the Philippines.
So in the future, maybe for those Filipinos who are willing to experience the mountains and the snows, Xingyi, Guizhou is a mountainous and very snowy place during winter. In the Philippines, we do not have snow. This is the kind of product that most of the filipinos are looking for as well to experience.
On the other hand, for the Guiyang and Xingyi, Guizhou province, a people from this area would, I presume love to visit also our beaches? So in this area, we can come up with a collaboration on how to come up with a product that would be loved by the Filipinos and the Chinese as well.
Editor Ⅰ: Zhang Wenwen
Editor Ⅱ: Wu Dan
Editor Ⅲ: Liu Guosong
