|
Calypso Moments
A feature article about the dramatic growth of tourism in the Calamian Islands in Palawan, all thanks to the archipelago’s abundant marine nature.
Loida Almenana is a hotel manager at the intersection of success – at the right time and in the right place – for there is probably no better place to run a hotel right now than in the Calamian Islands in the south of the Philippines. “The number of guests has steadily increased this year, in keeping with the trend since 2003,” said Loida, manager at Club Paradise, one of the two upscale hotels (the other being the sister property El Rio Y Mar) in the Calamian Islands. “We haven’t felt the effects of the financial crisis or economic downturn at all.”
For the other two dozen cheaper accommodation outfits in the Calamian archipelago it’s been even better, with occupancy levels hovering at around 100 percent. “It’s been a dramatic year,” told me Al Linsangan, president of the Calamianes Association of Tourism Establishments. “The volume of tourists has been consistently greater than the hotels can absorb, and we have had situations where tourists couldn’t find a room and had to sleep in private homes or in tents.” Statistics show that in the first three months of 2009, the number of arrivals topped 6,000, almost reaching the same level of 2008 when the annual total was 7,000. “The total in 2009 is on course to at least be double that of the total in 2008,” Al added.
No one would have thought one year ago that a mere infrastructural project would have such a dramatic effect. But it did: the upgrade of the airport, completed at the end of November 2008, has been the single factor that’s opened the tourist floodgates in the Calamians. Once the previously unpaved airstrip, which could formerly cater for only Twin Otter or Fokker planes, was upgraded to a proper concrete runway, then all the mainstream Filipino airlines – Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Zest (a new Filipino low-cost airline) – started making the daily hops from Manila. Seat capacity swelled, prices plunged, and the rest is history…
“What’s interesting,” Al said, “is that it didn’t take any particular marketing to foreshadow the tourist boom. It’s as if people already knew about the Calamians, and that there was a latent interest that was released as soon as seat capacity increased and the air fares fell.”
Administratively set in northern Palawan province, the 163 islands that make up the Calamian archipelago indeed have a huge potential. Nature is gloriously wild – pristine beaches, azure sweeps of sea, karst forests in the interiors, dense mangroves embroidering waterways, and relatively coral reefs – and the Calamian Islands (as well as the rest of Palawan) are hyped as the “Philippines’ last frontier.”
Yet up to recently, the Calamians were obscure. It was mostly a diving destination, luring divers who had heard of the excellent cluster of World War II wrecks that offer some of the best wreck-diving in the world. Aside from that, there was also Club Paradise – this year it’s the twentieth anniversary of Club Paradise – which build a small and loyal following in Europe as an outpost of comfort among rugged nature. The nature-friendly resort (the resort started taking the environment seriously long before it was fashionable to do so) is situated in its own private isle in Maricaban Bay, a sweeping and desolate bay that’s home to a healthy community of dugongs, the sea mammals that are endangered everywhere in their range in Southeast Asia. And the resort has endured for so long exactly because the milieu hasn’t changed: the isle teems with wildlife, the coral reef that fringes the island is one of the most varied and colourful I have ever seen, and there are other exciting underwater possibilities further afield (snorkeling or diving with dugongs, diving the wrecks, and forays to Apo Reef, one of the most impressive coral reef atolls in the world).
But the profile of the guests has been changing in recent years – in Club Paradise as well as in the Calamians. Now natural and rugged destinations are in vogue, ecotourism is a buzzword, and suddenly the Calamian Islands have an appeal that is much wider than ever before. Now most guests at Club Paradise are Filipinos and Koreans, and Europeans have been relegated to sharing the fourth spot with Japanese.
So much has changed that a place that sells itself as the ‘last frontier’ now attracts established operators such as the Banyan Tree, which has chosen the Calamians for the first development in the Philippines. “Seasoned travellers are increasingly seeking more exotic and far-out destinations,” told me Yvonne Lim, corporate affairs manager at Banyan Tree’s headquarters. “And Diwaran Island has the right qualitative balance in terms of unspoiled natural beauty, pristine beaches and proximity to Manila.”
The development, which began earlier this year, is possibly the largest integrated tourism project that Palawan has even seen. It will consist of three hotels (which together will have 600 rooms), yacht marina, and a piazza with a range of bars and shops and restaurants. The aim is to have a one-stop destination-base, set in a prime natural playground.
It’s also part of the wider plan to attract high-yielding tourists to the Calamians, which is official government policy. The policy is enshrined in a Department of Tourism master plan titled Environmental Management Plan for Northern Palawan, launched a few years ago in a bid to reconcile tourism development and environmental protection, and now adopted as the guiding plan by the local government. “The overall concept is to use tourism as a positive force in nature conservation,” explained Al, who was previously involved in the project. “Already, several marine parks have been established.”
Evidence of the success of marine parks is illustrated in Siete Pecados, a spatter of isles fringed by reefs situated 20 minutes by boat from Coron Town, the main town in the Calamian Islands. The reefs were dying from destructive and aggressive fishing, but the designation of the park led to recovery: the reef has grown back, the fishes have returned, and the coral gardens now attract snorkelers in droves. “At first local officials were reluctant to give up fishing in marine protected areas,” said Janet Fahrenbach, president of the NGO called Friends of the Calamian Sea. “Then they realised that they could make money from charging tourists who visit the marine parks and became enthusiastic about protected areas.”
Some would say that Siete Pecados is now becoming a victim of its proximity to town and its own success. No carrying-capacity limits have been introduced, and the high number of visitors is now causing harm: fishes are disturbed during spawning and coral branches are broken by insensitive snorkelers. The same has happened in Coron Island, where two lakes and a couple of beaches were opened for tourists by the indigenous Tagbanua that, in 2003, were given management rights of the island on the basis that it’s their ancestral homeland. The island now features in the standard day-trip in the Calamian Islands, and the hundreds of day-trippers that swoop down daily on Kayangan Lake or any of the beaches are leading to overcrowding.
In this sense, this year’s tourist deluge has been a double-edged sword, filling the hotels and restaurants with guests but at the same time putting a strain on the infrastructure – electricity blackouts have become common and water in the taps in Coron Town sometimes whittles down to a trickle. “Infrastructure in Coron is the priority development now,” Al said. “The local administration is focused on infrastructural development, and also on things such as aesthetics and cleanliness. For example, fishermen often throw rubbish on the beaches where they live, and then this ends up as unsightly flotsam in the sea.”
More than seventy percent of the tourists that have arrived this year are low-spending Filipinos on short breaks of four days on average. These tourists are funnelled, with virtually all of them visiting the same half a dozen places on whirlwind tours, leading to overcrowding at the main beaches and lakes and coral reefs within striking distance of Coron Town. But further afield, beaches and coral reefs are deliciously desolate – the immediate need in fact is for tourists to spread out more widely. And in the long term, the aim remains the same as what’s enshrined in the master plan: to go upmarket and hence have fewer high-yielding tourists.
There is a unanimous concern that mass market tourism will end up destroying the natural qualities that attract tourists in the first place. And one of the main goals of the Calamianes Association of Tourism Establishments is to raise the standards among its members.
“Maintaining high standards is not easy at present,” told me Bruno Chaillat, proprietor and chef of Coron Bistro. It’s the best restaurant in northern Palawan, cooking up an excellent range of French-inspired dishes – the most expensive and yet busiest standalone restaurant. “I have to stay in the kitchen day-in day-out as I simply can’t find another cook whom I can trust in the kitchen. That is why the upscale resorts do buffets, as it’s easier to maintain high standard in buffet than in a la carte dishes.”
It’s what Club Paradise do, buffet for lunch and dinner. Additionally, more than a fifth of Club Paradise’ staff members are from outside the Calamians. “Members of the staff do require constant supervision so that standards don’t slip, and many times I even have to remind them to smile with guests” said Loida, the resort manager. “It’s hard to have a refined, five-star service over here, and hence our owner keeps telling us that our focus should be on being a simple resort where members of the staff act naturally and warmly. It’s a strategy that has worked well for 20 years.”
“More investors need to come in and invest here so that the local people develop better service skills and the Calamians go upmarket,” said Al. “The good news is that now this is happening in Limpakan Island, and also on a massive scale in the new development by Banyan Tree. We are starting to get boosts in every sense.”
(C) Victor Paul Borg 
|
