Department of Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco expressed her support to the launching of the “People Planet Profit: Principles and Practices of Sustainable Tourism,” a book on sustainable tourism published by the Asian Institute of Management, Dr. Andrew L. Tan Center for Tourism.
“I am very honored to join you today at the launch of this very meaningful book that shall serve as a manual for pushing sustainable tourism development in the Philippines. This book and the five-year journey that it took to get here for it to be published and made public, perfectly reflects the values of the Filipino spirit,” Frasco said.
“Notwithstanding the difficulties and challenges and in fact, the most difficult crisis that the human race had ever faced, you have eventually come to this day.”
“You pursued the publication of this book with passion, perseverance, patience, a sense of humor, and an inextinguishable hope. Notwithstanding the difficulties and challenges and in fact, the most difficult crisis that the human race had ever faced, you have eventually come to this day,” the tourism chief noted.
To manifest her support to the sustainability goals of the publication of the book, the tourism head personally purchased an initial 100 copies that she said is for immediate distribution to all the regional offices of the DOT and key stakeholders whom she continues to meet to have a collaborative approach toward tourism governance.
In her address, Frasco also shared her experience as the former local chief executive of Liloan, Cebu–a municipality where the lifeblood of the economy is tourism.
She said her hometown province was once battered by the strong Typhoon Odette which paralyzed over 90 percent of its local economy at the height of the country’s battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In my town of Liloan, which is a coastal ridge to reef town, over 31,000 houses were completely demolished and 95 percent of my fishing communities in six of my barangays completely lost their livelihood. Sustainability is not a mere concept or a theory to us, but has and should be a way of life. We have concrete examples of how the application of sustainability principles, when truly taken to heart, can have measures of success in our communities,” Frasco said.
“We must face a world where we can no longer treat tourism simply as a numbers game, but more importantly as one that we must treat with respect, with reverence, and with great concern.”
“As we grow out of the difficulties of the pandemic, as we claw our way out of the many calamities that we have faced, we must face a world where we can no longer treat tourism simply as a numbers game, but more importantly as one that we must treat with respect, with reverence, and with great concern to ensure that the tourism destinations that we have all over the country lasts for the long term,” she stressed.
“Again, please accept my sincere gratitude for publishing this wonderful book and bible on sustainable tourism development. You can rest assured of the full and unequivocal support and partnership of the Department of Tourism in all our shared goals for the development and transformation of the tourism industry in the Philippines, anchored on the principles of sustainability,” Frasco added.
The book launch was also attended by AIM-Dr. Andrew L. Tan Center for Tourism chair Dr. Jesli Lapus; Alliance Global Group, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Kevin Andrew Tan; Megaworld Foundation President Dr. Francis Canuto, and other officials of the AIM; DLSU Publishing House Executive Publisher Dr. David Jonathan Bayot, and other representatives from the academe.
