Devondiver, I totally agree with you that why i have that question up on the other thread. Thing is all those resorts that do have their own transfer system will not lower their prices.
Which is why they are empty all week. They deserve to be.
Just for the main fact that foreigners when they come to anilao pay for the transfers anyway.
How many come??
Philippines tourist industry is 2000x smaller the size of Thailand's. 500x smaller than Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia....
Greedy, lazy, small-minded operators have restricted the Philippines' tourism industry to a tiny number of dedicated divers, a few Ex-US military folks... and the Expats that already live and work here.
Nobody else comes...
Whats another 100usd on top of their full 7 or 8 day package.
Yep...that's
exactly the attitude I've encountered here.
The taxi driver who thinks "it's fair" to charge a "rich" tourist 500php for a journey that should be 80php on the meter.
The vendor who charges a tourist 150php for the meal that costs a local 30php.
....again...and again...and again...
Thinking that
anyone doesn't care spending money is crazy.
$100 may not be "much" for one of the foreign Expats living in Manila and earning a dollar salary.... but it is a lot to plenty of regular westerners.
Besides which... people don't like to know they are being
ripped off. Westerners hate that, just as much as Filipinos. Westerners care about economy...just as much as Filipinos do.
And in the modern global economy...enough of those westerners are struggling to pay
expensive mortgages on their homes,
expensive taxes in their own countries and have to deal with
high cost of living. They don't have surplus money....and
do care about every dollar they have to spend.
Here's the truth of it.... foreigners come here
because it is CHEAP. If it isn't cheap...
they won't come.
Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are
cheaper. That's why tourists go to those places.
As I said in the earlier post... the
greed here
stops tourism. Empty resorts is
proof of that. Go to
any other Asian country and you'll see
how many tourists there are. You can see how things
should be here.
In Thailand, on the small island where I lived, we produced over
50,000 PADI certifications per year.
50,000!! Seriously. Only on one small island that was 8km long!
I'd be surprised if the
whole of the Philippines produced even 5000 certifications a year. It's a sad joke.
That was just PADI courses.... Can you imagine the money being made by the wider industry? Can you imagine the
numbers of tourists? Can you imagine the number of hotel rooms booked? Meals sold? Drinks sold? Tours sold? T-shirts sold? Bus/van/taxi journeys sold? Souvenirs sold?
Im seriously considering this as a viable business now and will keep you posted on developments. In the beginning though it is really going to be hard to cater to the people traveling alone. 2-3pax is fine but its those lone clients that are bugging me.
I understand your concern. You've got to trust in the long-term vision. Offer a great service and it will reward and flourish.
If the service isn't reliable, then it won't get used. No doubt in that.
Have you seen how the bus/van services in Thailand and Vietnam run? They are excellent business models... and
exactly what tourists want.
(if not, lets meet for a coffee and I'll be happy to describe the system for you).
The thing about anilao is i think they are happy the way it is.
Ain't that the truth!
That's because many of the resort owners disappear to Manila during the week, to do other jobs and generally spend the money they make from their resorts at the weekend.
It's a waste of potential, it a lack of entrepreneur spirit, it's awful business management.... and '
it's how things are done here in the Philippines'.
They don't want to lower prices to match puerto galera for fear that it might turn into a puerto galera.
Anilao will never be PG. It doesn't have the beaches. It doesn't have the bars.
Getting more foreign customers
doesn't mean selling your soul to attract the fat-bellied sex tourists. There is a whole other market of nice tourists out there... but most Filipinos have no clue of that...
because those people don't come to the Philippines... they go to Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam etc.
Truth is I love the diving at PG but i stay away from it because of how sabang is in general, and i think more than anything the loyal local crowd of anilao feels the same way and the resort owners keep it that way for them and their decade of loyal patronage.
Yeah... those are the Expats, the 'regular' visitors and the ex-US military guys I mentioned. Those folks are a tiny percentage of the overall tourist market that comes to Asia.
Business owners here just don't see the rest of the market - because
that market don't come here.
Subic Bay is the same. Inside SBMA everything is set up for Expat Koreans and Pinoy groups from Manila. In Baloy/Barretto everything is set up for the western Expats and sex-travellers (same as PG).
2 parts of the market - nothing more.
Nobody considers doing anything different... offering anything else.... doing anything new. There is no entrepreneurship. No initiative.
....
and so, most tourists go to Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia....
Yes the market that goes to PG is big.....
NO... it isn't big. It's tiny. Compared to anywhere else in Asia..
IT IS TINY.
It's one small type of people... a few serious divers, a few Manila resident Expats and a few sex tourists.
Don't kid yourself on this.
and its very much tappable given what anilao can offer but i guess they dont want to touch it to keep that whole PG and Olongapo vibe and ambience away.
Gotta look 'outside the box'.... or rather '
outside the Phils'. Business' here only see the market in terms of what
already exists. They never see it in terms of
potential.
Look towards Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia and you can
see the potential.
Nobody seems to do that here in the Philippines. It's blinkered.
Also, you have to take into account the profile of most resort owners in anilao, specially the newer and exclusive ones. They are mostly owned by richer filipino families who have been diving anilao for 20 or so years. In the case of bambu villa they set out to build a beach house and later on decided it might be a good idea to turn it into a resort. Some of the resorts over there seem to me like more of hobby businesses and they're used more for socializing than for turning a profit.
Absolutely. It's a joke. If they have money to burn, then let them.
I was once offered a management role in one of those 'hobby resorts'. I turned it down. It was waste of my time. I wanted to make money - to run a
business - and there was no support, vision or motivation from the owners to do that. Lazy owners. No initiative. No entrepreneurship. No care.
Some of the resorts there
are run for commercial profit though.
If those 'real' resorts start to earn a fortune, then the 'hobby businesses' may take notice.
Also the foreigners head for bohol, cebu, PG or palawan mostly because those are the places which have been known by the international markets for the longest time.
Again...don't fool yourself. This is another myth that Filipinos delude themselves with. The international tourism market is VERY dynamic and fast-paced. Things change very quickly -
in the rest of the world.
People don't go to Anilao because of the cost... and because the only market they cater to are Manila residents (a very small market).
More people go to PG...again because of the cost...it is cheaper. And because they cater for a specific market, which is bigger.
If
any business targets a different market, they will get a different market.
NOBODY here in the Philippines targets the backpacker, economy diver or family markets. So those people don't come here....ever.
THOSE ARE HUGE MARKETS (just go to Thailand to see....)
I guess that can be attributed to many foreign operations existing in those places.
Yep. Foreign operations understand the international tourism market. Filipinos don't.
...and STILL those foreign operations cannot
access the larger market (backpackers/economy) because of a lack of support infra-structure. Primarily... because of a lack of economic transport options.
Like i said, aside from the odd korean owned resorts, anilao resorts are mostly filipino owned that being the reason for lack of international publicity.
Publicity isn't a problem. Websites are global. Tourists use the internet for almost ALL of their holiday research.
The fact that 9/10 Anilao resorts that I've emailed
didn't bother to respond to my query emails, or had dead email accounts, or dead links on their websites.... illustrates how badly Filipino business people fail to grasp the importance of internet communication and website availability as the KEY tool to attract foreign tourism.
Over half of the diving customers I've had this year have mentioned to me that
I was the ONLY operator that replied to their email enquiry.
How many dive operators/resorts/tour companies here have properly SEO tuned websites? Interactive content?
How many have skype access via their websites for easy international communications?
How many have
credible websites, that are actually updated and modernized on a regular basis?
How many have coordinated publicity on social media? LinkedIn? Tripadvisor? Lonely Planet? Backpacker forums? Twitter?
How many use a gmail/yahoo/hotmail for their business? (do they even know that this is seen as
highly unprofessional in the West?)
The situation is shocking!
It shows a lack of awareness of the global market. If people want success in the tourism industry
they have to understand that global market.
But that being said, anilao is actually gaining ground in the international market.
Relative to the Philippines maybe. But this country is
dead as far as the Asian tourism market goes.
A
single large dive shop in Thailand probably has more customers per annum that the entire Anilao region. That's not an exaggeration!
Go there and see for yourself....
Specially now that photography and the macro craze is starting to take a foothold.
That's a TINY tourist market. Very specialized and very small. A handful of serious divers who are pro-am level photographers.
Hong Kong, Japan and asian markets have been there, and now their only getting stronger....
Tiny market...
europeans are starting to come as well.
Not really. The market is MILLIONS strong per annum.
They won't come here, unless major changes are made.... and those changes need to start with the mindset of resort owners and so-called entrepreneurs here in the Philippines.
The Philippines thinks of the tourism market in terms of thousands... They content (and pride) themselves with customer statistics of such low numbers that they don't even equate to the turn-over of a single branch of McDonalds in a year.
Funny thing is; it's the higher end resorts and facilities that these new influx of foreign guests stick to like acacia, and bambu villa the ones in that price range where yes its more expensive but its a little bit more upscale.
Yep... because they are the only ones who offer
reliability and who have
decent websites and who quickly
answer their correspondence.
There's no reason why an economy resort shouldn't do that. If they did, they would see HUGE customer numbers. But...as I said before... the support infrastructure HAS to be in place; particularly in regards to transport and communications.
If you look at the Thailand forum here on Scubaboard
you will never see discussions about how to make long and confusing trips via public transport to get to a resort.
You will never see complaints that a resort/operator cannot cater for a single customer.
You will never see questions or complaints about how to get to a resort or an area. THAT is because those things are all provided...economically, reliably and with good organization.
Email a resort in Thailand and you get a response immediately. You go to Bangkok... you go to a tourist office.... you get a CHEAP bus ticket.... a dedicated CHEAP tourist van takes you to your destination. There is a dedicated travel network offering very CHEAP and RELIABLE daily transport to all the major tourist areas. For the customer, it's easy. It's CHEAP. So MILLIONS of people go there each year.
