Good prospects for Cebu in BPO and tourism

The world recession is supposed to hit the Philippines hard by 2009 when many of our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) would be returning to the homeland when they lose their jobs abroad. This is what the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) has been warning… of a reverse migration if the economic depression affecting most Western nations would be prolonged. However, if we only listened to the doomsayers from the TUCP then nothing will ever happen in this country.

Enter the group called CB Richard Ellis, the world’s largest real estate service provider chaired by Rick Santos who held a press briefing at the Fernan Press Center in Cebu City last Wednesday and gave the Cebu media a brief review of the current global economic situation and what opportunities are available for Cebu especially in the coming year.

Santos was very optimistic about the growth of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, saying, “As companies’ revenues are under pressure multinationals look to save costs and move offshore to the Philippines as it’s easier to save a dollar than to make a dollar. Moving them to multiple outsourcing destinations, and looking beyond the CBDs to find lower labor costs and land values, make the outlook good for Cebu City.”

The CB Richard Ellis press briefing validated what we wrote a couple of weeks ago in light of the two international incidents that grabbed the international news headlines – the terror in Mumbai, India where terrorists occupied the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Hotels killing close to 200 people, and the political turmoil in Thailand where protestors took over Bangkok’s two international airports – which present rare opportunities for more investments in the IT and tourism industries that the Philippines could get hold of.

For starters, even before the Mumbai incident, Indian investors have already set up shop in Cebu because of the political stability of the Philippines. Funny, but it wasn’t long ago when direct foreign investments refused to come to the Philippines because we were politically unstable. How the world has turned around, now we are perceived as the most politically stable among our ASEAN neighbors. How our luck has changed!

On the tourism front, there were some 80,000 cancellations to Thailand because of the political protests that prevented them from flying into Bangkok. Unfortunately, we were slow in catching those tourists for the simple reason that Cebu today lacks hotel rooms. In short, the construction of new hotels in Metro Cebu hasn’t filled the demand for more rooms. With this news, Cebuanos can look forward to a better future in 2009. –BOBIT S. AVILA, Philippine Star