PALAWAN, the Philippines' last frontier and destination of choice for vacationing Hollywood stars, business tycoons and Europe's royalty, is fast losing its popularity, according to figures published by the country's tourism department.
But surprisingly, major resort operators in this cluster of islands 500 kilometres south of Manila have yet to sense the problem. Hotel executives in the area say business is better this year than in 1998, when Asia's lingering financial crisis was at its worst.
But official data from the Department of Tourism show otherwise. For instance, only 7,500 tourists went to Palawan in the first quarter of the year, or just a sixth of the 49,499 visitors recorded for the same period last year.
In 1998, tourist arrivals fell 46 per cent to 53,106 after peaking at 98,612 in 1997. Last year's performance marked the first time in 10 years Palawan suffered a drop in visitor volume.
DoT officials, however, say they have yet to find out what exactly is wrong with Palawan, a long and thin group of coral reef islands that stretches from the south of Mindoro in Luzon's Southern Tagalog region to the northern edge of Borneo in the south.
Considered one of government's so-called anchor tour destinations, Palawan has the Philippines' best woodlands, wildlife and waters whose exquisite beauty remains relatively intact. The government has protected the area by making most of it national park and wildlife sanctuaries.
Major tour operators say they have recovered since 1998. "Our business is up 20 to 30 per cent this year," says Carol Valdez, sales and marketing director of Club Paradise, a resort hotel in Palawan's Coron area.
Teresa Jimenez, sales and marketing director of El Nido Resort Hotel in Palawan's El Nido island cluster, partly attributes the recovery to an increase in visitors travelling on incentive.
Jimenez explains that before the crisis a lot of local business executives and Manila-based expatriates took travel perks abroad. As Asia's lingering financial turmoil vaporised the peso's value, their travel options changed.
Now company headquarters in Manila want their executives to "rediscover" Palawan by offering the place as a cheaper alternative for incentive travelling.
In the past, top resort hotels in the area did not really pay much attention to the Filipino market as they preferred expatriates and other foreign exchange-earning guests. But when the regional foreign exchange crisis stranded prospective foreign guests in other Asian capitals, the hotels started emphasising local sales.
Jimenez says local guests now provide 28 per cent of El Nido Resort's revenues. In 1996 Filipino guests only contributed 10 per cent of the hotel's earnings.
Discount promos also helped lure back clients. El Nido, for instance is offering a "Pre-Millennium" promo at 40 per cent less than the regular price. Jimenez says these promos helped them a lot.
But they apparently could not change the DoT figures. A source at the department says they are still looking at why Palawan's travel volume dipped.