RP 3rd cheapest tourist destination in Southeast Asia

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has been ranked the third cheapest tourist destination in Southeast Asia, a survey made by one of the leading financial publications in Asia showed.

The survey conducted by FinanceAsia, one of the leading business publications in the region, utilized Mandarin Oriental’s rack rates as basis for the reader’s outlook.

Topping the list of best tourist destinations in Southeast Asia are Indonesia and Thailand, while Malaysia came fourth after the Philippines.

“Despite our readers’ increasingly eccentric voting patterns, Indonesia seems a reasonable choice,” FinanceAsia said.

It added: “A cursory glance at Mandarin Oriental’s rack rates shows a deluxe room in August costs $345 a night in Bangkok, which would get you a club room in Manila – plus change for a taxi to the airport. In Jakarta, a deluxe room is just $173 (and about the same in Kuala Lumpur), which is literally half the price of Bangkok.”

Another method used is The Economist’s Big Mac Index, which uses the price of burgers around the world as a light-hearted measure of relative currency values, and used as a benchmark for tourists to work out how expensive an unfamiliar country is going to be.

However, the evidence of this data is the opposite of the Mandarin data: a Big Mac in Indonesia costs $2.28 – more expensive than either Thailand ($2.16) or Malaysia ($2.12).

On the upside, readers stuck in Hong Kong for the summer can take advantage of the second-cheapest Big Macs in the world — cheaper even than China.

“But anecdotal evidence suggests that it is lower than in either Thailand or Malaysia,” it stated. That makes the Philippines the cheapest place for both burgers and hotel rooms, the report noted. The peso also has the advantage of getting cheaper. The rupiah, on the other hand, has strengthened so far this year. It costs about Rp9,000 to buy a dollar today, compared to Rp9,350 at the start of the year. Baht and ringgit exchange rates have also strengthened.

The peso on the other hand, is almost unique in the region, having consistently weakened against the dollar this year.

Tourism traffic in the Philippines hit over 8.9 million in 2009, or 14.19 percent higher compared to 7.8 million in 2008. In the same period, 1,056 new hotel rooms were opened in Metro Manila. –Ted P. Torres (The Philippine Star)