Completing the Tourism Circuit: The Case of Surallah

By Jonallier M. Perez
Many local government units, eager to be part of the booming local tourism industry, embark on ambitious projects requiring gargantuan amounts of public funds, only to realize years after that it is taking them extra long time to recover the returns of public investments, if any. Most common practices are heavy infrastructure expenditures, such as site developments, access roads and other facilities, on just any natural attraction they may have without serious prior study on its feasibility and target market, among others. Alternative jobs may be created and there may be a little spike in the national economic performance figures because of massive public spending. They may have something to write on their annual accomplishment report too. In the end, however, millions of limited government resources go down the drain developing destinations that are hard to sell. Somewhere in SOCCSKSARGEN Region, one city is spending millions of pesos developing a Lilliputian falls whose water level decreases every year and whose city dwellers would rather go to neighboring Lake Sebu for a far better experience at the famous Seven Falls. To a serious tourist, say from Davao or Cebu cities who already travelled that far and spent that much, a mere 45 minutes additional land trip to Lake Sebu is nothing. And that dwindling tiny falls in the city remains nothing.
This is not an elucidation on efficiency in public spending, however. Rather, this is a little discourse on completing a tourism circuit, given constrained public funds and limited natural attractions. Surallah in South Cotabato is a good example. It has no natural tourist attractions, such as falls, beaches, caves, mountain ranges, etc., that are at par with those of its neighbors. Lake Sebu used to be part of Surallah. When this scenic town, which is home of the dreamweavers, was carved out of Surallah, the former brought with it the three lakes and the seven falls, among others. Surallah’s only natural asset, probably, is the fact that no one goes to Lake Sebu right now without passing through Surallah. The mother town sits on a most strategic junction and is a mere 25 minutes away from Lake Sebu, the region’s foremost tourist destination and the BIMP-EAGA center for development on community-based ecotourism.
South Cotabato has a rapidly booming local tourism industry. It has a complete recipe that offers memorable tourist experience. It has a destination branding strategy with its shout out as the Land of the Dreamweavers—an iconic, authentic and powerful marketing message. Desirous of sharing in the gains of industry growth, Surallah is judicious enough to create its own tourism product line, instead of wasting its limited resources on natural attractions that are really hard to sell. A project is ongoing designed to develop its food icons that will be the official tourist-oriented pasalubong items. Among the targeted market niche are tourists going to Lake Sebu, on top of local market demands and that of the region through consignments in malls, stop shops, cafes and souvenir stores, among others. Food icons being developed
Last year alone, 314,000 tourists went to Lake Sebu. More than half of them went there through organized tours, mostly by tour operators and travel agencies. Currently, there is no food icon in the province that is undergoing aggressive marketing effort, probably with the exception of various tilapia-based recipes in Lake Sebu and fruit derivatives from Tupi town. Imagine even if only half of the annual tourist traffic to Lake Sebu drop by at Surallah and be made to purchase its food icons through previously arranged tour packages with travel operators, say at P100 only per head. That would be equivalent to roughly P15.7 million annual gross income for its pasalubong center!!
This writer is currently helping Surallah fine tune its tourism product line and has made it appropriately clear to the municipal government that the future pasalubong center will be owned, managed and operated by a people’s livelihood organization under a public-private partnership arrangement with the municipal government. The livelihood organization will be composed of unemployed women and out-of-school youth, and not by a single capitalist, profit-oriented entity. After all, the challenge is not only about increasing tourist arrival and receipt but also spreading the socio-economic benefits of tourism to as many people as possible. An inclusive tourism industry is for the common people too, you know.