Hello, I’m Gary Bowerman, and welcome to Episode 4 of the High-Yield Tourism Podcast. On today’s show, Jens Thraenhart and I will be reflecting on our visit to Cebu in the Philippines for the debut UN Tourism Gastronomy Tourism Forum for Asia and the Pacific and the annual UN Tourism Commission meetings for East Asia and the Pacific and South Asia. So, let’s get started. This is High-Yield Tourism.

Hello and thanks for listening in. On today’s show we’re going to discuss some of the key themes from the UN Tourism Commission Regional Forum for Asia-Pacific that we both attended in Cebu, the Philippines at the end of June, and some of the learnings for high-yield tourism. So, Jens, how are you doing?

I’m doing great, Gary. How are you doing?

I’m good. I’m in East Malaysia. I’m in Sabah. Sunny Kota Kinabalu. It’s not quite so sunny now. It’s actually about to rain. Yeah, I’m here for a few days, taking a break from Kuala Lumpur. Jens, let’s talk about this time that we had at the end of last month, 26th to 28th of June. We were in Cebu, the Philippines for the UM Tourism Commission meetings. Pretty interesting time. The event was a three-day event. It kicked off with the inaugural Gastronomy Tourism Forum for Asia-Pacific. What were some of your impressions from that part of the event, the one-day forum?

Yeah, I mean, I think, first of all, I applaud UN Tourism, or formerly known as UNWTO, the World Tourism Organization, to actually link their annual commission meetings. And this one was for Southeast Asia and the Pacific and South Asia. So bringing together around 25 tourism ministries in an invite-only commission meeting, which they do for other regions as well, but linking it with a food tourism conference. This was the first one actually for Asia and the Pacific. And I think it was very timely. I mean, obviously, food tourism has been a big topic for over a decade. And many, many destinations have leveraged food as a theme to promote their destinations. And, you know, we know how important food is. But I think also we do know that food can also drive this concept that we’ve been talking about of attracting high yield travelers. And some of the statistics actually there, it’s like 81% of travelers agree that trying local food is part of traveling that they look forward the most. And 79% of travelers like to explore new food options they have never had before when traveling. And 37% of travelers plan entire trips around visiting a specific restaurant when they go on a journey. So I think all that is very important, especially now coming out of the pandemic.

Yeah, I would agree. Those are interesting statistics that were presented at the forum. I think the aspect of this I found the most interesting, Jens, is that the UNWTO, now UN Tourism, has actually hosted a global gastronomy tourism forum. I think they’ve done eight editions now, and they’re now spinning it off into regional events. So this was the debut event for Asia and the Pacific. I think maybe this month, there’s going to be a debut event for Africa as well, an African regional gastronomy tourism forum. So you’re starting to see how this is sort of spinning out from a global perspective, which they will continue to do. But having these local forums, which actually make the event more, obviously, regionally focused. And it was interesting, I thought, the selection of the Philippines hosting the debut forum. I thought the selection of the Philippines hosting the debut forum. What did you think about that? What did you think about that?

I think the other global forums were primarily Yeah, mean, in Spain and also Peru, but there was also one in Bangkok a few years back as well. But I think kicking it off with Philippines was obviously linked to the commission meetings. But I think that also makes the entire commission meetings more relevant in talking about something that is so important and a driver for high yield tourism. So I think it’s great to linking it. I mean, next year, the commission meetings for Asia and the Pacific will be in Bali. And I think discussions are already underway to encourage the Ministry of Tourism of Indonesia to also host a gastronomy forum in Bali as part of the commission meetings.

Yeah, absolutely. So the event was hosted and actually chaired by Christina Garcia Frasco, who’s Secretary of the Department of Tourism for the Philippines. So this was the high-level engagement with tourism gastronomy. And she made one interesting comment that I thought. She said that the reason for hosting it, and actually the Philippines’ angle, was to cultivate a symbiotic relationship between two important economic sectors, tourism and gastronomy. And this forms part of a broader plan to leverage food tourism for the growth of various sectors of the economy. And that was brought out, wasn’t it, in some of the presentations, Jens? They actually looked not just at the promotion and the marketing of gastronomy tourism, but a long way through the travel chain and also into the agricultural chain as well. Some of the challenges that this will bring in terms of actually as you raise the profile of gastronomy tourism and you raise demand, some of the factors that would have across the agricultural sector.

Yeah, absolutely right, Gary. And I think linking food tourism beyond just gastronomy, but also linking it to, you know, other areas of inclusion like dispersal and rural development, women and youth empowerment, economic inclusion, cultural preservation, I think make it even more relevant. And one quote that was mentioned was that food production and consumption shall occur in a sustainable loop, minimizing waste and maximizing resource efficiency and the benefits for the people. So I think it wasn’t just about food, but yet I think what I also found so inspiring about the event is that they were actually bringing in chefs to the event from Hong Kong, I believe another one from Spain, if I’m not mistaken, and then also the Philippines. And these were all, you know, celebrity chefs, but all focused on local food, local production. And they were telling their stories, how they got into becoming chefs, but also how they then link it into tourism and building or driving community tourism. So I think it was a fabulous event, very inspiring, but I think also very relevant in these particular times.

Yeah. And as you said, Jens, they brought some chefs in from across the Philippines and highlighted some of the foods from across the Philippines, the different regional foods. And as the Secretary of the Department of Tourism pointed out, you know, the Philippines is a huge country, is a massive archipelago, 7,641 islands. So the opportunities for, you know, the different temperatures, the different climates, the different growing conditions for food tourism around the region are huge. And they tried to bring that together. And I thought that was quite interesting. It really was a celebration of different types of Philippine cuisine, which went across really well. I think a lot of the delegates, many were there for the first time in terms of gastronomy tourism to actually experience what food is like across the Philippines. It was a platform, wasn’t it, for the Philippines to showcase that?

Yeah, it was a great platform, obviously, because many people may not even know Filipino food, because I mean, normally, it’s about Thai food, Chinese food, Vietnamese food, those are kind of like an Indian food, those are the kind of like famous, you know, Asian, you know, food pillars around the world. But Filipino food is not that known, but they kind of created a great event in really showcasing cuisines from all over the Philippines. But I think the other thing that was very well done, I have to say, is linking it back into the commission meetings, which are closed ministerial meetings where the UN tourism presents their scope of work, the achievements, but also the countries, kind of the ministers give interventions and talk about some of their initiatives. But what they’ve done is then created what they call a Cebu call to action on gastronomy tourism as a driver of sustainable development for Asia and the Pacific. And they had 12 points that came out of the gastronomy tourism forum the day before, but then were linked into actually the ministerial commission meetings. And I think that was very well done. Yeah, I agree with

I agree with that. So as you said, it was part, the Gastronomy Tourism Forum was the first day of a three-day event, which was incorporated in the 36th joint meeting of the UN Tourism Commission for East Asia and the Pacific and the Commission for South Asia. Now, the big event really ends, the final day was pretty a headline event. And we had a superstar, rock star beginning, really. You and I arrived at the venue and there was drummers and there were, I think, pipers at the venue. There was huge security. And there was a good reason for that, wasn’t there? Because the keynote speaker for the event was actually the Philippine president himself, Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Yeah, and I think his remarks also were very relevant as he actually linked his vision to tourism. And obviously it was great to even meet him on stage there as we were invited to have a photo opportunity. And I think going back to, I think, these 12 points that then were presented by the Secretary of Tourism of the Philippines, really driving the vision of not only the government of the Philippines, but also then driving sustainable development for Asia and the Pacific as a region, I think was great. And I think some of the points that I remember, and the Pacific as a region, I think was great. And I think some of the points that I remember, and please help me out here, but, you know, it was around creating governance mechanisms to making sure, obviously, that government can create policies that aid in the sustainable development for tourism, and then also foster cross-sector cooperation with other countries. And coming, obviously, having headed the Greater Mekong Tourism collaboration with the six member countries, you know, where you have Chinese food, Vietnamese food, Thai food, Lao food, Khmer food, Myanmar food. We already saw the linkages between food just in Southeast Asia. And I think kind of expanding that into Asia and the Pacific, I think will be some great opportunities. And then another point was support small businesses and local producers, empower local communities, and promote culinary identities. And so I think all of these, you know, are policy-driven initiatives that really enable and empower the private sector to execute and drive these experiences that, again, then attract, you know, what we call high yield travelers.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I think that bringing those points together is what President Marcos tried to do really in his keynote. He was saying all of those events in terms of the gastronomy, tourism, all the points that you made were bringing together into a much larger framework. And the framework really is to place tourism as a pillar of the national economy and future tourism growth and socioeconomic development. That was a key point that he made. What they’re trying to do overall under his presidency and under the governance of the Secretary of the Department of Tourism is to ease visa access, improve the connectivity hubs like airports, and then drive public investment and private sector investment to increase the value of the Philippines tourism economy. And therefore, that will move across the tourism value chain. And as he said, ultimately, the potential is to increase the livelihoods and improve the lifestyles of millions of Filipinos. livelihoods and improve the lifestyles of millions of It’s a country of 120 Filipinos. million people. And it’s probably always underperformed in many ways in terms of traveling and tourism. But the policy agenda and the will there is to increase this. And hosting this event was certainly a part of that. Absolutely. And I think the other thing

Absolutely. And I think the other thing that, and we, you and I talked about this at length, you know, during our experience in the Philippines, it comes out so strong when you visit the Philippines is the friendliness of the people. Ministers that were present at the commission meetings with this whole theme around capacity building, advancing education and innovation, and making sure that training is a key part of it. Because, you know, what we notice, I mean, and you cannot notice it going to the Philippines, is the friendliness of the people. I mean, wherever you go, people are smiling, people are saying hello to you and trying to help and making the impossible possible. But then there is also that lack of maybe processes and training that’s still lacking in a way. And I think the Philippines is a great example, you know, how they’re making up for it by the friendliness where people are trying to improvise to make it work. But I think across, you know, I mean, you and I in Southeast Asia, if it’s Thailand or Laos or Vietnam or Cambodia and other countries, training and capacity building are just so important. And especially hospitality education. You know, we now know that Cambodia is looking to build a hospitality school, which is linked to the policy of the new tourism ministry to not just, OK, making sure to promote the destination, but also making sure that the capacity there to deliver on these experiences and on the promise that’s being articulated. on these experiences and on the promise that’s being articulated. Human capital development is an issue across the world,

Yeah, totally. I think, post-pandemic. The tourism industry has lost a lot of people, and it did during the pandemic, particularly in Asia-Pacific, because those border closures were so long and the impact on travel and tourism was so deep. And I guess with the Philippines, also, you have this issue of brain drain. You know, a lot of Filipinos, because of the economic conditions in the past in the country, go overseas. And they’re in high demand in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and other Asian countries. The quality, as you said, of tourism, hospitality, and service delivery from Filipinos is in demand around the world. And therefore, that means within the country, although it has a huge population, human capital development is going to be very, very important. But that came out, didn’t it, in terms of the UN Commission meetings from many other delegations from countries across Southeast Asia and beyond. Actually, they are facing the same issues. They all want to grow tourism. They all want to grow the value of tourism for their economies. However, the actual human resource issues and the development and training of people are a big challenge. And I think that’s something that the Euro Tourism Commission actually recognized and needs to put in place and said that it will put in place new frameworks to support this because it is going to be a big issue, not just this year, next year, but probably across the next decade.

Yes. No, you’re right, Gary. And I think what’s interesting, actually, is that, you know, a lot of countries talked about this whole notion of increasing value or economic benefits, but Malaysia, the country where you’re living, is the Undersecretary of State who was representing the tourism industry of Malaysia actually mentioned high-yield tourism as a concrete theme. And then when we talked to her afterwards and gave her, you know, as we kind of created our first trends report, a high-yield tourism trends report for Asia, you know, provided free copies to the ministries, she actually resonated immediately with the concept of high-yield tourism but what’s interesting Gary you know when you and I have done now research on this you know the elusive theme of high-yield tourism one thing that comes out is that these high-yield travelers you know while they spend money you know and while they are more predisposed in having local experiences and spend money on local products, they do have expectations when it comes to service. You know, so I think if you want to attract high-yield travelers, it is very important that you can deliver on that promise.

Yeah, I agree. And you referenced the high-yield tourism Asia trends. The first issue that we put is going to be a new quarterly report. And we’ll put that on the website soon. That will be available. And we’ll put that onto LinkedIn as well. But the response to that was quite interesting, wasn’t it, Jens? We noticed that actually even during the meeting itself, that some of the delegations were actually reading the report during the meeting proceedings. And it got a positive response because a lot of people, it kind of sort of pressed the button, I think, and shone a light on something that I think people are thinking about, even at the highest levels of travel and tourism, but implementing and actually working a way forward to develop high-yield tourism is still tricky. And it’s something I think the industry will probably grapple with for a period of What do you think? to develop high-yield time. tourism is still And it’s something I you tricky. know, the think, industry will probably grapple with for a period of time. What do you think?

Yeah, no, I think, you know, as we found out talking to a lot of people over the last six months as we started developing this concept, you know, many people jump into this whole, you know, perception of, well, high-yield tourism is just a luxury tourism. And this trends report, I think, unveiled this a little bit that, you know, perception of, well, high-yield tourism is just a luxury tourism. And this trends report, I think, unveils this a little bit that, you know, it is around creating experiences and connecting with people and making sure that people that travel to destination spend local and then create these economic benefits where money actually stays in the destination. And as you and I kind of develop these economic models that are not just around it’s about sustainability, but these are really frameworks that help tourism boards to then in a sophisticated and complex manner to attract these high-yield travelers. Many of the tourism boards and tourism ministers that we talk to, we’re very interested to then find out how can we help them to attract these high-yield travelers, especially from some of the source markets that they’re already targeting, but mainly then focusing on tour operators and mass tourism, but also on maybe source markets that they haven’t really looked at, but that have some great potential.

Yeah, absolutely. So we referenced that this was a three-day event, and the third day was the UN Tourism Commission for Asia-Pacific’s meeting, its annual meeting. And we were lucky enough, weren’t we, to be in the Inner Sanctum, Jens. The event was chaired by Christina Frasco, the Secretary of the Department of Tourism of the Philippines. The UN Tourism Secretary General was there. The Tourism Minister for Indonesia was there, Sanjoga Uno, because as you referenced, Jens, the next meeting next year will be hosted in Bali in Indonesia. And you had a chance to have a quick chat with him.

Yes. No, I mean, I’ve never met him before, but he was very personable. And I actually talked to him about high-yield tourism, because as you referenced, Chameleon Strategies, our umbrella company where high-yield tourism sits in as a venture, you know, is actually the second vice chair of the UN Tourism Affiliate Members. So the affiliate members are 500 organizations that are not country governments. So these are, you know, universities, these are research companies, consulting companies, hotel companies, These are research companies, consulting companies, hotel companies, airlines. So you have Airbnb, CNN, Emirates, Amadeus, you know, lots of big companies in there. And Chameleon Strategies is the second vice chair of the board. And as such, we were invited because, you know, being the highest officials on the affiliate members board from Asia and the Pacific to give the intervention and give an update on the initiatives of the affiliate members of UN Tourism. And as such, also, we were able to introduce this concept of high-yield tourism in this intervention that obviously then kind of led to some of the countries and the officials from the tourism ministries come to us directly to want to explore this topic further.

Yeah, absolutely. And we were lucky to speak to, as you said, some of those affiliates. I had a long chat with Fliggy, the delegation from Fliggy, the Chinese OTA stroke super hub who gave some fascinating insights into the current state of outbound tourism from China and domestic tourism in China. Some quite eye-opening comments there, although those are off the record. So it was interesting. I mean, we learned a lot. We spoke to people from around the region, from Iran to Laos, from Malaysia, from Vietnam, from Hong Kong, from Macau, from China. It was a pan-regional forum that brought together a lot of different ideas. I think a lot of the challenges, the point we’re at the moment in terms of the recovery after the pandemic, we know that this region has had a different trajectory of recovery because those long border closures had such an impact. But, you know, travel and tourism, as we saw at the airports that we were traveling to, you flew from Bangkok, I flew from Kuala Lumpur into Manila. Busy, busy airports. And, you know, people are traveling again, but it’s bringing a whole new range of challenges. Because although travel and tourism is redeveloping and regrowing, it’s also reshaping as well. And that was, I think, one of the key takeaways, I would say, from the whole meeting. I would takeaways, from the whole say, meeting.

And I think that’s also the reason why this kind of unique product that we’re developing, you know, for tourism boards, but also for other travel companies, you know, travel companies and other private sector travel

and other

organizations, or even retail, what we call the tourism playbook, you know, where we developed a fairly unique framework, at least we think so, where we can then help these tourism boards or private sector organizations to really target source markets or segments in attracting these high-yield travelers. And so I think it’ll be very exciting because this is something that is currently, at least to my knowledge, is not available in the industry, but it’s really badly needed.

Yeah, I would agree. I think from the conversations that we had and some of the learnings that we gleaned from the delegates there is that this is an issue that is going to become into stronger focus. People are going to be thinking more about this, particularly into 2025. Everybody is planning for their tourism budgets and their plans for next year. And these two recovery years that we’ve had, really, 2023 and 2024, and 2025 is a year of getting really, really serious. Competition to attract travelers is going to be much, much stronger. Governments are going to be pushing to drive up revenues. Again, the segmenting of those high-yield visitors is going to be ever more important. And that’s something that I think we came away with from the whole meeting end, wasn’t it? That there was real receptiveness to building models around this basis. Correct. And

Correct. And I think, you know, looking back to, let’s say, 2021 and 2022, when I was CEO of Barbados Tourism, you know, when it was very challenging, especially for leisure-only destinations like islands, to attract airlift and, you know, kind of really drive tourism. It was almost, you know, kind of restarting the engine from scratch. People were very focused on numbers and comparing always how we’re doing. People still do it today, but how we’re comparing to 2019 levels pre-pandemic. But now we are seeing that some of these 2019 numbers are even exceeded. You see in Europe, over-tourism is coming back. The air capacity is back. Even Chinese travelers, where many people always said, like, where are the Chinese travelers? They’re back. You know, we’re seeing gross numbers, I think, for all various destinations getting Chinese tourists again. But I think what you and I have realized, and that’s why this high-yield tourism concept is so important, and building economic models to help tourism boards is critical now, because tourism has changed. And we have seen over tourism in 2018, 19. But now I think, you know, consumers are just looking at a tourism differently they want different experiences they do want to connect but then also we have a whole other narrative that’s starting now which is kind of growing in sentiment this whole thing like well should people actually travel long haul you know is this still even the right thing to do because of climate, because of, you know, sustainability? And I think that’s a very dangerous discussion that’s starting to unfold because I think we can’t just not travel to faraway places because travel is around exploring new places. It’s about building relationships. And these relationships, these people-to-people relationships, they also are important when it comes to fostering peace. So I think I’m not saying, you know, we always have to jump on a plane for 12 hours, you know, or fly business class or whatever. There are ways to obviously become a more responsible traveler. However, just saying like, well, you know what, if a flight is more than whatever, four hours, I’m just not traveling to these destinations anymore. And I think that’s not right as well.

Yeah, I agree. And I think this places a lot more emphasis on the recovery of Asia Pacific tourism from within Asia Pacific itself. We do know that so far in the last two years, you know, a big driver of the recovery from the region has been inter-regional travel. If you simply just look at the Chinese outbound market in the first quarter of this year, 78% of outbound Chinese travelers stayed within the Asia Pacific region. You know, these figures are similar to what they were pre-pandemic. I think what that means is that, you know, a lot of people are traveling within the region once again. But, you know, as you said, travel is changing the patterns of travel, the choices, the windows of booking, the experiences that they want to have when they actually arrive in destination, and actually the way they book those experiences once they’re in destination. It’s not just all about doing pre-planning anymore. A lot of these things are changing. And that’s really placing more emphasis on segmenting, understanding markets as they change, because they will change and they will reshape. is offering visa-free access. Everybody wants to attract more tourists. Competition is going to get very fierce. very, It already is pretty fierce. And so that segmenting of that high yield is really where you can drive not just yield-driven tourism, but you can actually understand your travel flows a little bit better.

Yes, no, you’re right. And I think over the last podcast episodes, I mean, we’ve been speaking, you and I have been speaking about high-yield tourism. And you and I, I think, learned so much just, you know, doing research and talking to people and talking to each other. And we’ve gotten some great feedback from these podcast episodes. Now, I think, you know, kind of starting our quarterly friends report focused on high-yield tourism, starting with the Asia Pacific region. But what can our podcast listeners expect going forward? Where are we going to go with this going forward?

Yeah, it’s a good question. So as you said, we started a quarterly report of looking at trends within the region that actually demonstrate how governments are actually moving towards more experiential based, more yieldbased tourism services, how consumers are responding and where their demands are. So that’s an annual report. But we’re also producing, which I think is probably our signature product, Jens, and that’s the tourism playbooks, which you probably explained a little bit better than I do. But this is something that we really have put a lot of effort, a lot of research, and we’ve spoken to innumerable people about putting these projects together. Do you just want to give us a quick wrap on what they are?

You know, in order to really harness these economic benefits to, you know, make tourism a force for good, you know, essentially. And I think we realize now that, well, more is not always more. I mean, you know, it needs to be a balanced growth. It needs to be the right people. But I also believe that there’s also a sense of education with travelers, that people can move and become better travelers through that. But, you know, there is a way, obviously, to attract these travelers. But on the other hand, also, it’s important to kind of have the products, the experiences. And also it’s important to kind of have the the experiences. products, And as we mentioned before, the service levels and training in place to deliver these experiences and make sure that all the stories that are being told, that people can have their own stories and create their own memories when they come to the destination. So in essence, it’s an evidence-based product that provides actionable insights for destinations primarily to then attract these high-yield travelers from specific source markets. We’ll be looking, you know, source markets like, you know, for example, Singapore’s an overlooked source market, but also China, where you and I have some very good experiences. And we, every source markets we look at, we’re going to look at specific partners that will help us in these markets to help them also on the activations for the destinations of these playbooks.

Yeah, perfectly explained. And on the podcast itself, Jens, we’ll also be introducing some guests, some interviews that we’ll be conducting with some of the people that we’ve been speaking to and we’ve been talking to and we’ve been researching with over recent months from different segments, from different walks of the travel sphere who have input into this really, really changing field, this changing landscape of that yield-driven tourism sector.

Exciting times ahead. Let’s do it.

Absolutely. So that’s a wrap for the fourth edition of the High Yield Tourism podcast. My thanks to Jens, as always, for his thoughtful insights. We’d love to hear your thoughts and your feedback. Please join the conversation on our LinkedIn page at High Yield Tourism. That has a hyphen in the middle so at high hyphen yield tourism we’ll be back next week to talk more high yield tourism we’ll see you next