Business news

Aerial tours seen to boost tourism
By Rhia de Pablo
Monday, February 11, 2008
Thr Freeman

Answering the call made by Department of Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano on providing an alternative and wider array of tourism activities that will bolster the promotion of Cebu’s tourism, a private company has eyed to intensify the marketing of their aerial tours that will cater both to domestic and international tourists.
Optimistic with the huge potential of tapping the influx of both foreign and local tourists in Cebu, Aviatour, a full-service fixed base operator (FBO) in the general aviation industry that operates in the country’s central and southern islands is bent on intensifying the promotion of their sightseeing aerial tours.
“Tourists usually doesn’t have that much time to see all the beautiful sights in the country because of their limited stay, so we will do this kind of island hopping on the air to provide fresh prospective for the tourism industry,” said Aviatour executive vice-president for global sales and marketing Kenneth Roy Madrid in an exclusive interview with The Freeman.
Madrid discussed that the potential of operating aerial tours in a larger scale to better promote the tourism industry of the country and to generate an increase for our tourist arrivals has not yet been fully utilized here in Cebu.
“This activity is not yet being done in large scale so we are very positive and excited with it as we believe that it is still under- tapped. If we market this to even only a portion of 10% from Cebu’s total tourist arrivals we can capture a very big market,” said Madrid.
By targeting tourists coming from different Asian countries suck as Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong; Aviatour is keen on contributing a positive growth to the local economy as they will be primarily be focusing on providing tours along Cebu and its neighboring islands like Bohol.
“This is our way of doing our part in the promotion of tourism and making tourists see how beautiful the Philippines really is,” he added
Seeing a huge potential to gain better profit margins with this segment, Aviatour decided to expand it business in terms of breadth by intensifying on their sightseeing tour packages after they have gained a strong hold in their flight school operation in the previous years.
Right now, Aviatour is in close negotiation with various tour operators to include aerial sightseeing activities in the itinerary of their packaged tours.
Confident about the big opportunity ahead of them, Madrid pointed out that the “tourism industry here in Cebu is booming so there is a very big potential for this segment and since there is not yet much competition we can easily dominate in this area with our expertise, equipments and resources,” said Madrid.
Primary route and destination for the aerial tours include the Olango channel, the coastlines of Mactan Island and its nearby islands which will take about 30 minutes and will pass by famous hotel resorts of the Mactan Island then to the small islands of Hilutungan, Nalusuan, Olango, Cabul-an & Cuamen. Then another tour offering is the 45-minute aerial tour of the world famous Chocolate Hills.
When their aggressive promotion of their aerial tour packages kicks off this March, Madrid projects to gain a range of about P1 million to P3 million monthly income.
“The opportunity is there for us to take so we decided to take it. This is going to be big and we intend to be the number one player to dominate this segment,” stressed Madrid.
Aviatour has been in operation here in Cebu for almost three years now and aside from its Mactan base, they also hold offices in Manila and in the state of Texas in the United States.