50 reasons it's great to be a tourist

Or 50 reasons to stop hating and start traveling

By Duncan Forgan 

If you hate them, you need to join them.

With their worldly sophistication, cheap fisherman pants and penchant for being smiley all the time, tourists are a much-hated group.

But before you laugh too hard at the lost look in their eyes, or mock too much the clattering chaos of their attempts to board the roof of a minibus with five bags and three cameras swinging from their torsos, understand this: they don’t care.

They’re having the time of their life. And we all know why. Being a tourist is awesome.

Let us know why being a tourist works for you. Comment below.

Color clash -- the uniform of tourists everywhere.1: You get to go on and on and on about how amazing India/Paraguay/France is without actually having to live there.

2: You can eat like a feudal lord every night, and still lose weight from all the walking.

3: Whether you’re terrifying yourself on local transport or basting yourself in the sun next to a bag of beer, it beats what your friends are doing back home.

4: Freedom from the tyranny of socks.

5: The guilt attached to not utilizing your gym subscription is way less severe than it is back home.

6: You can ensure you return home looking svelte and lean by seeking out the town’s dirtiest street vendor on the penultimate night of the trip. 

7: Visiting a foreign country is way more stimulating than staying at home all year. And if you don’t like it, you can at least sound exotic when you moan about it.

8: Cold beers on the beach/in a hammock/in bed/in a bar/on a road trip in the middle of the afternoon? Don’t mind if I do.

9: Breakfast buffets. Fresh fruit and muesli then hash browns and sausages then perhaps some blue cheese and ham. It doesn't make sense, but so what? You’re on holiday.

10: If you don’t like someone, you never have to speak to him/her again -- unlike the person who sits next to you at work.

Next stop Pisa, to "lean" against the tower.11: Bringing home a tan and worldly knowledge is like dousing yourself in pheromones. Just be sure to cover up with mosquito spray, to avoid unsightly welts.

12: No matter how linguistically challenged you are, the words “beer,” “toilet” and “hotel” work nearly everywhere.

13: Getting drunk excused under the guise of “testing the merits of local brews over homogenous imports.”

14: It’s easy, in fact it’s imperative, to flick the off switch on the depressing news and awful TV shows that otherwise fill your life.

15: If you’ve got any sense, your destination of choice will be significantly cheaper than your own country.

16: If you look as if you’re going to spend some money, even locals who don’t like tourists will pretend they do.

17: You can finally finish that book you’ve been falling asleep with every night for the last three months.

18: You can bolster your social networking cred by Facebook-friending lots of exotic foreigners.

19: The weather. Even the rain seems somehow exotic when abroad.

20: The buzz you get walking around a new place knowing you're not at work is one of life’s greatest highs.

Postcard home: "How's work? Wish you were here. Snigger."21: You can get a foot massage every day without anyone thinking you’re a fetishist. 

22: You can finally wear those expensive sunglasses without fear of looking like a poser.

23: In fact, you can wear anything. Baggy Thai pants with a singlet? Go on, no one will bat an eyelid.

24: You can indulge passive-aggressive tendencies by posting lots of pictures on Facebook of yourself paragliding or surrounded by Hawaiian dancers or [insert jealousy-inducing image here].

25: You learn about the country you're visiting through experience, rather than National Geographic.

26: Stories about eating still-beating snake hearts and downing tequila straight from the bottle are pretty rock ‘n’ roll.

27: You finally get to use those foreign phrases you learned in junior school, like “Voulez vous couchez avec moi, s’il vous plaît?”

28: There’s a good chance you’ll be allowed to smoke cigarettes indoors.

29: Happy hour is actually worthwhile -- half-price drinks starting just before sunset and extending for at least two hours.

30: An afternoon siesta is not just acceptable, it's a necessity.

How many tourists does it take to take a photo?31: You get to try local specialities previously only seen on TV: balut (Philippines), fried monkey toes (Indonesia), tete de veau (calf’s head, France) and roasted ants (Columbia).

32. Those childish antics people get up to in pictures -- fingertips on the top of the Eiffel Tower, posing with fake gladiators at the Coliseum -- yep, you get to do them too now. Cool.

33: The lack of decent television channels in your mother tongue means you’ll have no choice but to go out and enjoy life.

34: Taking part in a drunken karaoke session becomes an appealing prospect.

35:  The nearest you get to cooking is pointing at the fish you want grilled for your dinner.

36: You can slob out safe in the knowledge that someone else is getting paid to make everything spotless for you again the next day.

37: The local eye candy is exotic and different.

38: You get to mingle with a range of nationalities. Then escape them the next day.

39: Your sense of appreciation for your surroundings returns.

40: You get to buy silly hats, small plastic mementos and other ridiculous trinkets without guilt, because they were designed specifically for you.

Planes, trains and inner tubes: life of a true traveler.41: With minimal effort -- such as sending a postcard -- you make your friends and relatives think you really care.

42: You can feign incomprehension when a suspicious taxi driver tries to convince you that a 10-minute journey really does cost US$75.

43: Those 1980s iPod playlists you compiled especially for the trip go down particularly well with others.

44: You get to mock other tourists who say things like, “By discovering the world, I am actually discovering myself.”

45: If you travel long enough, you get to say things like, “By discovering the world, I am actually discovering myself.” 

46: Write something nice about a bar on TripAdvisor on your first night and you might never have to buy a drink for the rest of your stay.

47: Tanned fat looks better than pale fat.

48: You get to wantonly fritter away money with the sudden knowledge that experiences are so much more valuable than things.

49: Whether it’s sniffing out a great sunset spot or a backstreet bar or restaurant, there are always new discoveries on the horizon.

50: You can finally jettison your mobile phone and laptop without stress. Phileas Fogg wasn’t online for hours at a stretch every day and neither should you be.

Tourism exec urges media write ‘positive stories’ despite violence

By Julie S. Alipala
Inquirer Mindanao

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ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines—One way of not scaring tourists away is for journalists to write positive stories about a place even if it suffers from an image problem because of violence, a tourism official said Friday.

Mary June Bugante, director of the Department of Tourism’s regional office for Western Mindanao, said she believed there were many stories to tell such as those pertaining to “travels, tourism, lifestyles, cultures and (other) developments (than) what we always read in the papers.”

She said these days, journalists tend to write more  “stories on crimes and violence” and this is not good for the tourism industry.

Bugante said to answer the need for news reports that are good for tourism, they have lined up some activities, including sessions on developmental writing, where journalists can learn to come up with “a positive spin for a place that is suffering from image problem like Zamboanga City.”

“We can still show  (tourists) the other side of the city; it should not just be all about the crimes and violence, even ordinary foreign visitors are still struck with the sceneries such as the hustle and bustle in our local market,” Bugante said.

She said to start with the developmental news sessions, the DOT will conduct content analysis of some local papers to determine how much space was devoted to tourism and other development related stories.

“After the content analysis study, we will be working with the Zamboanga Press Club, and the training is open to interested media to pursue this kind of writing,” Bugante said.

Bong Garcia, chair of the Zamboanga Press Club Inc., said journalists need not be trained by the DOT.

“We don’t need training on how to write development-oriented stories. What they should do is just provide the media the necessary information… and that is really lacking here,” Garcia said.

He also said that journalists know how to write stories.

Coming up with a positive spin out of kidnapping and bombing “is very difficult,” Garcia added.

“The only positive spin that could happen is if there”s positive result in the investigation or a suspect has been arrested in a kidnapping or bombing incident,” he said.

Hader Glang, assistant editor of Zamboanga Today, said journalists just report the news as it happens.

“It’s like fooling the people if we come up with a positive spin to a story like bombing,” he said.

PH: Home to the world

Fiesta Islands

By PAUL EDWARD P. SISON

July 31, 2011, 8:00am

MANILA, Philippines — A wise old man from Liwasang Kalayaan in Marikina Heights, who we shall call Mr. T for purposes of anonymity, always says, “Sa Pilipinas lang genuine ang ngiti natin sa mga bisita. Sa ibang bansa, fake lahat yan.”

What he really means is -- it is very natural for Filipinos to be hospitable to tourists compared to our Asian neighbors who have to put up a front. He attributes this to something which we have considered all our lives as a negative trait and weakness as a people – the fiesta mentality.

The fiesta mentality is all about putting our best foot forward. It’s about wanting to please our guests. It’s about giving up the best room in the house for our visitors to sleep in. How many of us have slept on the floor so our guest could have a comfortable sleep on our own bed?

Filipinos throw the best parties. Have you noticed that? Fiesta is about a whole community coming together as one to host a party where every home is open to everyone – even those you don’t know.

Mr. T believes that if we succeed in harnessing this newfound strength into a culture of tourism and make the whole world know about it – we can surpass all our neighbors in terms of visitor arrivals.

Why talk about destinations when we can talk about our people? Let’s face it, our impressions of places we visit linger in our consciousness for a while – but our impressions of people we meet in those places last us a lifetime.
Besides, our top destinations are superior to what the rest of the world has to offer. Even foreigners attest to this fact.

Have you ever wondered why is it that expatriates who initially resent being assigned to the Philippines and consider it initially as a hardship post eventually find it so hard to leave when their tour of duty is up? Why are nurses and caregivers from the Philippines very much in demand in different parts of the world?

It is because we are a nation of 90 million smiling, caring, and affectionate people. Taking good care of the needs of guests is second nature to us. Somehow, the racial mix brought about by centuries of being a colony of different foreign powers is now working in our favor.

The challenge now is how to harness this competitive edge and galvanize all tourism-related sectors behind this collective positioning.

Let us hope for the best and pray that Tourism Secretary Alberto Aldaba Lim will be able to triumph over adversity, caused by industry outsiders, to lead us into the 6.6 million foreign visitors mark he is targeting for 2016.

The poor secretary, the decent and hardworking person that he is, is at the receiving end of a harsh and brutal demolition job coming from outsiders posing as know-it-all tourism experts.

You know something is fishy when people assailing the DoT Secretary are not the ones from the primary tourism enterprises like travel agencies, tour operators, hotels, resorts, tourist transports, etc. – but, people from real estate and hospital services.

The real score is that one of the most aggressive turns out to be a losing bidder for the National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP). But he does not mention this. He allegedly tried to pull a fast one with his association’s board of directors but was rebuffed. So, looking around for an entity from where to launch his “advocacy,” he finally found an NGO that would legitimize his vendetta. He even wrote P-Noy with concocted tales to discredit the tourism chief.
We were informed that past officers of the association are poised to censure this wily fox for using the name of the prestigious association to further his personal agenda.

The two others, on the other hand, belong to a body that was described as “not in accordance with the intent and wordings of the law” by solons who authored the Tourism Act of 2009 and are asking that the body be revamped to conform with the law.

The NTDP is Lim’s contribution to President Benigno S. Aquino’s poverty alleviation agenda. It is the roadmap which translates the DoT chief’s vision into actionable programs and projects. It rationalizes the different priorities into a strategic framework and outlines action plans to guide the DoT and other stakeholders in the development of the tourism sector between 2011 and 2016.

The strategic vision is to become the “must experience” destination in Asia. For the sake of our country, let us pray that Sec. Lim and the DoT succeed.

For comments, please email paulsison@ideasman.ph

Have flip-flops, will travel

By Irene C. Perez
Philippine Daily Inquirer

LIKE a pair of flip-flops, photography and travel always go together. It’s a match that makes us crazy.

We stay up late to book promo fares online, line up in airline offices if Plan A fails, plan itinerary and wardrobe changes, invest in cameras and gizmos, take a gazillion photos and upload them to Facebook, Multiply, blogs, ad infinitum – for all to see that we have been there, eaten these, seen those.

Cebu Pacific feeds your passion and lets you make the most out of your travel itch by launching the Wandering Juan Travel Journal Photo Contest – an online competition where you can showcase your best shots of your favorite travel destinations.

In Amorita

“Wandering Juan” is the travel-savvy, pack-and-go tourist. He’s a smart and sensible traveler who checks out travel reviews online even before buying a ticket. And oh, he takes lots of photos and is often seen wearing tsinelas – a staple footwear that’s comfy and casual.

The web-based photo contest was recently launched at Amorita Resort in Bohol.

Amorita is a luxury resort in Panglao, Bohol. It boasts of ocean-view villas, an infinity pool, a sun deck, good food and, for those of us who get jitters when offline for long hours, reliable WiFi.

The resort is perched atop a cliff and gives you a calming view of Alona Beach which has fine, white sand; clear waters that sparkle when hit by sunlight; and a soothing vibe that can only be found in not-so-busy beaches.

‘Tsinelas’ shoots

There are three categories for the Wandering Juan online photo contest, and all require a pair of tsinelas in the picture.

Sights. Landmarks, scenery and views featuring a pair of tsinelas. Write a caption of no more than six sentences.

People. Interesting individuals, locals, prominent personalities, kids – any characters you encounter during your trip. Don’t forget to incorporate the tsinelas. Include a short description of the person and, perhaps, a quote. Provide name and occupation. Limit is six sentences max.

Travelogue. For those who can’t just have one photo. Go click-happy and make a photo essay consisting of five photographs, using the tsinelas as a focal point of the story. Each photo should have a one-sentence caption.

Prizes. For newbies, here’s some inspiration: prizes include trips to Singapore; Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia; and Bangkok, Thailand. Now there’s putting the travel lust to good use.

“We chose tsinelas as an inspiration because it’s very Pinoy. It’s something we always wear during travels,” said RG Orense, manager for corporate communications. “It symbolizes a very down-to-earth and carefree mood.”

To join, purchase Cebu Pacific tickets and register online at www.wanderingjuan.com. Take pictures from your destination until October 31. Upload your picks to the Wandering Juan website.

Photos must be at least 2MB in size, and please, no digital enhancement of any sort.

Entries must be original and not have previously appeared on print or online. Items will be judged according to creativity (20 percent); uniqueness of destination (20 percent), message/story/caption (40 percent); and overall impact (20 percent). Visit the website for complete requirements.

Multiple entries are allowed so you can showcase your terrific shots online!

“This is a good time to be a traveler and learn more about the world and our places in it, given all the affordable options and unique services that make travel dreams possible and more meaningful,” said Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and distribution

If you want your pics printed, Cebu Pacific also offers the Fun Prints service operated by Mozcom.

There’s a comforting thought if you have a hard copy of your digital files. You could have it framed or mounted to make sure they last long, with every photo having a story of its own.