Beijing, meet Davao

By Cheche Moral
Inquirer
Last updated 11:58am (Mla time) 07/13/2006

All bases were covered when the Philippines returned to China recently to make its pitch once again at the 3rd Beijing International Tourism Expo.

With inbound Chinese now venturing beyond their favored destinations in the Philippines—Pagsanjan and Tagaytay— and trooping farther into the islands for sun-and-sand respite, our Department of Tourism (DOT) was emboldened to highlight a specific haunt on this trip, to woo not just holiday-makers but investors.

Davao, the featured city, came prepared, with a 10-day Philippine food festival held at the Marco Polo Xidan, Beijing; a fashion and cultural show underscoring the province’s ethnic roots and honeymoon destination features; and a trade and investment presentation.

There’s reason for DOT’s optimism about this market. In 2004, China didn’t even count among the Philippines’ top 10 sources of tourist arrivals. By the following year, over 107,000 tourists (many of them repeat visitors) surpassed the DOT’s 70,000 Chinese arrival target, putting China in No. 5 spot. In the first quarter of this year, arrivals from the mainland had already exceeded Taiwan, making China No. 4. The target figure is 350,000 tourists from China by 2010.

The DOT largely credits its presence in Beijing for this development, two years since the establishment of a tourism office there.

“[Chinese travel operators] are focused on profits,” says tourism attaché Jazmin Esguerra. “Once you assure them of that, they’re really easy to deal with.”

The Philippine embassy in Beijing is also closely complementing DOT efforts. Incentives are awarded to specific tour groups, according to Ambassador Sonia Cataumber Brady. Visa applications can also be downloaded from the Internet now, and the Chinese enjoy a visa-upon-arrival scheme.

The envoy, whose last posting was Thailand, expressed her approval of the DOT’s endeavors. “You need money for what Thailand is doing,” she said. “We don’t have that... Let’s make do with what we have. The government is doing its best.”

Unlike the previous year when the DOT introduced new campaign collaterals in the capital city — posters in bus stops, clips on video walls, billboards— this time Tourism Secretary Joseph “Ace” Durano focused on new infrastructure for Chinese travelers.

In his speech to travel operators, he highlighted the shopping and entertainment destinations in Metro Manila and introduced the jeepney city tour. Dubbed “Hop In, Hop Off,” the tour has two routes: the Manila loop that covers the new SM Mall of Asia, the Cultural Center, the Coconut Palace, the Walled City and Luneta; and the Makati loop that plies Ayala, The Fort, Tiendesitas, and The Spa in Eastwood, Libis. A ride on one of these jeepneys costs around P150.
Davao as “most peaceful city”

Davao, for its part, stressed its sometime award as the “most peaceful city in Southeast Asia” and one of the “cleanest and greenest in the Philippines.” At present the city enjoys good Korean and domestic tourist arrivals, says Roberto Teo, head of the Davao Tourism and Investment Center.

The city mayor Rodrigo Duterte, once described by Time magazine as “the punisher” for his iron-fist management style, was prevented from joining this trip by his duties as head of the Presidential Anti-Terror Task Force. But the Davao contingent, with the head of city hall’s legal department, Melchor Quitain, did its best to make its presence felt in the Chinese capital.

On the invitation of the tourism attaché, Manila designer Renee Salud presented 25 pieces of T’Boli-inspired clothes, resort wear, contemporary evening gowns and bridal wear at the expo and the Philippine Tourism Conference at the Marco Polo Xidan. The show directed by Jackie Aquino highlighted both Davao’s tribal past and its modernity. The bridal wear modeled by five Filipina beauty queens (and two male models) emphasized Davao as a honeymoon destination, with performances by dancers of the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group interspersed with the catwalk numbers.

An exchange on food

Three visiting Filipino chefs from Marco Polo Davao did more than introduce their Beijing sister hotel’s guests to Philippine cuisine. The trip turned into an exchange of know-how with their Chinese counterparts.

“They have very interesting presentation, and the food is good,” said Chef Swat, a sous chef at Xidan hotel’s Café Marco. “I can see that our Chinese guests would love the desserts,” he added, referring to a buffet spread that included leche flan, halo-halo, puto and suman.

The grilled seafood section was a hit with the guests, with its improvisation on Davao’s famed tuna belly. The kilawin station had a similar response: cooks from the South brought their own spin by mixing grilled pork and fresh fish.

But the Davao chefs had to make do with available ingredients while trying to be faithful to the original dishes’ flavor. The Chinese soy sauce, they complained, was “mapakla” (acrid); the vinegar too sweetish for Filipino dishes.

“If they want to serve our dishes here, they have to import the ingredients from us,” Frederick Carcedo, a sous chef at the Davao hotel, said in Filipino. “After all, that’s what we do when we hold international food fests back home; we import the ingredients. Only then can you get the real flavor.”

For his part, the chef of Marco Polo’s Chinese restaurant Lotus Court learned that dumplings are best boiled. “I realized that now, that when you steam a dumpling it shrinks,” said Nestor Cubradilla. “Their dumplings are all fresh. It’s like an assembly line, one is tasked to do each step. Even their dumpling wrappers are freshly made. When it’s frozen it loses flavor.”

“We’ve had visiting chefs in Davao, but we’ve never gotten this kind of response,” said Carcedo. “They’re attentive and quite willing to learn. They’re taking photos of the dishes... They didn’t know that you need flame to make banana leaves supple. They like that the dishes are flavorful.”

Smiling people and good food are, of course, the winning ingredients to entice the Chinese into our islands. And the DOT is confident that, in Beijing alone, there are enough tourists to go around.