Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco met with some foreign tourism stakeholders in Cebu City recently as part of the continuation of her listening tours, this time, to elicit valuable insights and suggestions from the specific sector to further improve the English as a Second Language (ESL) offering of the country’s local tourism industry.
“Our intention is to listen [and] to understand what are the prevailing challenges that your institutions face and to explore how the government, from the national and regional levels, may be able to present interventions so that the industry can grow even further,” Frasco said in her opening speech.
The tourism chief also relayed before the stakeholders composed of South Koreans, Vietnamese, and Filipinos Cebu-based ESL trainers and executives from various education institutions the President’s vision for the Philippines as it gears towards post-pandemic recovery.
“From the beginning of our President’s administration, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. has been very clear in his intention to ensure that the Philippines, which like many countries all over the world, suffered greatly from the pandemic would not just recover what has been lost, but rather to transcend the times, the demand, and the need for recovery,” the tourism head explained.
“The effort is not just to continue with the way things have always been done, but to support the programs that are successful.”
“Therefore, the effort is not just to continue with the way things have always been done, but to support the programs that are successful, and to try to see how you may be able to address challenges and issues so that the hurdles that may be present that are preventing the full growth of the sector may be improved,” she added.
Frasco also stressed the importance of the ESL sector to the Philippine tourism industry.
“Because we view you as our partners as being part of the family of tourism stakeholders are viewed greatly to our economy. And of course, ESL is not just an English as a second language, but also a tourism endeavor,” she said.
“I am hopeful that the exchange that we will have today will lead to an actual implementation of the measures that we may be able to take to fully support their industry,” Frasco added.
“The Philippines is the fifth largest ESL provider in the world.”
To note, an Austria-based research market specialist Bonard cited in 2019 that the Philippines is the fifth largest ESL provider in the world.
Currently, the Philippines ESL source markets include South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, while emerging markets are Vietnam, Mongolia, and Russia.
