Tourism jobs seen to help RP weather economic storm

MANILA, Philippines – “The country’s brisk tourism activity will secure the future of some three million Filipinos employed in this industry and even increase their number significantly to help tide the nation over the lingering global economic storm.”

Thus said Tourism Secretary Ace Durano in announcing the industry’s rising need for manpower even as those of several other sectors were on the decline.

Durano said the 1.3-million foreign and domestic tourists in the first quarter was substantial uptrend, indicating another banner year for Philippine tourism and more jobs for Filipinos despite the global crisis.

He said an additional 1,231 rooms worth P8 billion had been opened and another 2,315 would follow suit by yearend, thus increasing the industry’s capacity to accommodate a much bigger volume of tourists and employ a lot more people.

These few facilities are part of the P550-billion expansion projects of various investors involving some 7,000 new hotel and resort rooms.

“Such developments necessarily create jobs and livelihood. So rest assured that we in the DOT (Department of Tourism) and the private sector are working very hard to keep our tourism booming and help fill up some gaps in the economy,” Durano said.

“But while employment creation could always serve as a noble goal for any industry, it could also work as a noble means to spawn more job-generating tourism enterprises and businesses. This is the virtuous cycle that we want to establish and perpetuate through investment promotion at one end and through the annual TST (Trabaho sa Turismo) fair on the other. In fact, the global competitiveness of our tourism professionals as regularly promoted during the TST is one of our key selling points in attracting investors,” Durano explained.

The TST Manila 2009 fair is slated at the SMX Convention Center on May 22 and 23. This early, 270 employers have been confirmed as participants, 54.3 percent more than last year’s 175, thus indicating a bigger number of job openings available for this year.

The Manila fair follows a highly successful staging of TST Cebu last March at the SM City Cebu, offering some 8,404 applicants from Visayas and Mindanao a total of 8,598 jobs from 131 employers-exhibitors. –Philippine Star