Strategic Direction 3: Improve Tourism Institutional, Governance and Industry Manpower Capabilities: The implementation of this strategic direction

is a necessary condition for enhancing the competitiveness of the Philippines as a destination and achieving the targets of the NTDP. This will involve undertaking three key activities: Harmonize the roles and responsibilities of the DOT and the Local Government Unit institutions for tourism planning, development, marketing and regulation by improving institutional mechanisms for partnering on shared functions at the regional and local level; strengthen tourism policy formulation through partnering with public and academic institutions; and strengthen support to build the capacity of LGUs to undertake implementation of the NTDP at their level. The DOT, as the lead agency, will need to work with related national government agencies such as DTI, the League of Governors, League of Mayors, provincial government units at the regional level, and other stakeholders to implement this strategic initiative. Develop a competent, well-motivated and highly-productive tourism workforce. This will involve: building skills training capabilities by establishing TESDA skills assessment centers, and a skills recognition system; improving labor relations by modernizing the labor code, enforcing correct service charge distribution, and increasing the current ratio of tenured to untenured employees; promoting professional tourism training and education by participating in ongoing ASEAN initiatives, and consider privatizing TESDA tourism and hospitality training centers; and institutionalizing tourism human resources recognition, networking, and development by establishing an Association of Tourism Human Resource Managers, mainstreaming the Mabuhay Awards, and organizing an annual National Tourism Human Resources Forum. The DOT will need to work with DOLE, CHED, TESDA as well as industry groups such as the Association of Human Resource Managers to implement these strategic initiatives. (ESPI)

\ Creating a culture of tourism that promotes good hosting from arrival to departure, as well as ensuring safe, secure, clean and green tourist areas is critical to building a good image of the Philippines as a destination and along with this, generation of repeat visitation and advocacy to friends and relatives. This will involve: promoting transparency and developing host community capacities to participate in the tourism value chain; improving hosting skills of front-liners at ports and transportation services, and at places of stay, as well as safety and security in tourism cities, towns and centers; and establishing a crisis management and communication unit in the DOT. The DOT will need to work with the related national government agencies especially CAAP-Airport Managements, DOJ, DTI, DILG and LGUs to implement these initiatives. These actions need to be completed between 2011 and 2013 to provide the necessary supporting institutional, and human resource platform that is crucial to putting in place the third of the three strategic elements necessary to achieve the tourist volume, length of stay and expenditure targets for 2016. Environmental and Social Impacts: An initial assessment of the impact of increased domestic and international tourism in the 20 cluster destinations indicates that by giving adequate attention towards developing environmentally and socially sustainable tourism, providing necessary environmental infrastructure at the tourism centers and sites of the TDAs, and putting in place appropriate mitigation measures to safeguard heritage sites and vulnerable groups, the negative impacts of tourism can be minimized while its positive impact maximized. (CRIS)

Implementation Arrangements: The overall approach to the implementation of the NTDP is to institutionalize NTDP programs and tasks into the work programs of the DOT and its attached agencies, the related national government agencies, the regional development councils (RDC), and local government units (LGU). The NTDP cluster development plans and related projects should be integrated with the regional development plans with coordination of implementation undertaken at the RDC level led by the DOT Regional Director. Full-time coordination and supervision as well as technical support and institutional strengthening for tourism planning, development, marketing and regulation at the DOT Regional and LGU level will be required. In this context, the recommended institutional arrangements are as follows: the Tourism Coordinating Council (TCC) coordinates national government programs and projects related to tourism; the Tourism Congress provides policy, product and destination development and marketing support; a dedicated DOT NTDP Program Implementation and Coordination Unit (PICU) is established and headed by an Undersecretary; the Regional Development Council (RDC) integrates the NTDP into their regional development plans and programs; and the concerned national government agencies and LGUs undertake the implementation of specific infrastructure programs and projects within their respective work plans and budgets.

(QUEEN)

Action Plan: The NTDP sets out a detailed and coordinated action plan designed to address each of the above strategic direction and program in the form of specific sub-programs, projects and activities. The specific tasks to be undertaken, timing of implementation, estimated cost, responsibility for action, and success indicators are specified in the detailed roadmap for implementation. Initial Implementation Cost Estimates and Incremental Economic Impacts: Based on the action plan, the estimated cost of implementing the NTDPs programs and projects between 2011 and 2016 at 2010 prices is Php 265.9 billion of which Php 74 billion comprises public sector investment in infrastructure, tourist site improvement and marketing support; and the balance comprises private sector investment in hotels, resorts, leisure-entertainment-shopping, health and wellness, convention and event/exhibition, cruise and transportation facilities. An initial economic assessment of the investment against the incremental tourist expenditure likely to be generated as a result of the implementation of the NTDP indicates that the EIRR (21.05%) and NPVs (Php 24.1 billion) are relatively robust for the base case, and even for the lower visitor volume and expenditure scenarios tested. Incremental Economic Impacts: The successful implementation of the NTDP between 2010 and 2016 is expected to increase the volume of international tourism to the Philippines from 3.5 million to 10 million (an additional 6.48 million), thus increasing its share of ASEAN tourism from 5.1% to 10.1%, as well as increasing domestic travel from 27.9 million to 35.5 million (an additional 7.6 million). These volumes will require investment in an additional 50,867 hotel and resort units. The achievement of these volumes and related average length of stay and expenditure is expected to: contribute 8.1% to GDP; and directly employ 6.8 million people that will account for 17% of total employment. Based on developing the cluster destination framework recommended in the NTDP, it is estimated that around 1.6 million of the 6.8 million persons directly employed in the sector by 2016 will come from the poor sector. (MARIZ)