Airport transfers and tourism

* This is my article in BusinessWorld last November 10, 2017.

Is there a connection between tourism and the travel time to and from the international airport and the city proper?

I asked myself this question while I was reading Eva Air’s inflight magazine en route to Houston, Texas.

I spent a total of 17 hours traveling — two hours from Manila to Taiwan, a layover of one hour, and another 14 hours from Taiwan to Houston.

The good news is that all three airports mentioned have free Wi-Fi, especially in Taiwan, which offers fast Internet connections without requiring registrations. The bad news is that free Wi-Fi does not reach some gates at the NAIA.

I paid a visit to Houston to attend the “America First Energy Conference,” set for Nov. 9 at JW Marriott Houston, sponsored by the Heartland Institute, which also provided me a travel scholarship.

The airline’s En Voyage inflight magazine has one table that shows the list of the global airports they serve, distance from airport to downtown, the estimated travel time by train, bus and car/taxi (C), and cost in local currencies. I reconstructed the table and chose only major cities in East Asia, computed the average speed by car/taxi travel, then added data on each country’s international tourist arrivals and tourism receipts in 2016 (see table).

From the above numbers, these preliminary analysis would show:

1. Economies that have quick and convenient transport systems between their airports and city centers have higher tourism arrivals, even if their airports are far away from the cities. These examples include: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, and Singapore.

2. Airports near their city centers have fewer visitors, if transport systems between locations are slow. These examples include: Vietnam (especially Ho Chi Minh airport) and Philippines, both NAIA/Manila and Mactan-Cebu airports.

There are many factors of course why some countries have very high tourist arrivals while others have fewer visitors. These factors are convenience of the airport itself, overall peace and order situation of the country, dominance of the rule of law, proximity of that city/country to other important tourism areas in other cities and countries.

If one lands in Bangkok, one can go to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam by land, without the need to take other flights.

Preliminary data show that yes, there seems to have a positive connection or correlation between fast airport transfer and tourism arrivals.

The data on Manila airport is a bit outdated because (1) there are now convenient and fast bus transportaion from NAIA/Manila airport to city centers of Makati City, Pasay City, and Manila and vice-versa, and (b) newly opened NAIA Expressway (PPP project by San Miguel) has significantly cut the travel time by car from the airport’s three terminals to city centers.

Some implications for the Philippines and its infrastructure and tourism policies.

One, NAIAEx tollway is doing good and should contribute to attracting more visitors into the country; thus, further extension of this tollway to BGC and other areas as planned by the project proponents and O&M operators should be facilitated by the government and not subjected to various cumbersome and costly regulations and permitting procedures.

Two, moving the Philippine international airport to a farther but bigger space (Clark in Pampanga, or Sangley Point in Cavite, or currently rice lands in Bulacan, etc.) complemented by fast train and/or buses to city centers will be a win-win situation.

Three, allow more integrated PPP (builders and O&M operation functions are assigned to only one winning bid player or consortium of players) for big, new airports, not hybrid PPP.

Philippines' Biggest Hotel in Aklan Soon

I got this story from one of the facebook walls of my friends. Originally from the fb page of "Province of Aklan". This is good news, reposting, below.

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Once the Boracay Airport complex spanning Caticlan and Nabas in Aklan becomes fully operational over the next few years, some of its structures will set Philippine records for sheer size. And for environmental friendliness.

The most imposing structure in this $300 million airport complex will be its mammoth 5,000 room budget-hotel. When completed, this hotel will be the largest budget hotel in the Philippines. It will also be the largest hotel in the country, and probably in all of Southeast Asia.
In comparison, the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel, considered the largest Philippine hotel, has only 562 rooms, or an eighth of the number in the soon-to-be-built budget hotel at the Boracay Airport complex.

Room rates at the budget-hotel are expected to range from P1,000 to P2,000 per night. The rates compare favorably to budget room rates on Boracay and are, therefore, clearly affordable for inbound tourists. The budget-hotel is intended to help decongest Boracay, which will be flooded with about a million tourists this year and probably up to three million in the next few years.

The budget-hotel will be developed by San Miguel Properties, Inc., a San Miguel Corporation subsidiary. It will be run by local businessmen since the company expects more budget conscious tourists to visit Boracay once plane fares are slashed.

The planned dome-shaped convention center will be able to seat up to 25,000 persons, or 10,000 more persons that the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City in Metro Manila. It will become both the country’s largest convention center and its biggest indoor arena.
The new terminal building will be the “greenest” terminal building in the Philippines. Its large windows will allow the free flow of fresh air throughout the building thereby reducing the need for massive air conditioning.

It will derive part of its electricity from solar panels; will install a rainwater collection system and will have its own wastewater treatment plant.

And, of course, the new Boracay Airport will set records of its own. Once fully operational, it will be able to accommodate some three million Boracay-bound tourists annually or 10 times the capacity of the old airport.

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The last time I went to Boracay was more than four years ago, sometime in mid 2008 I think. The airport in Caticlan was indeed small, only small planes could land and take off. The bigger planes have to land in Kalibo, the provincial capital of Aklan, and it is nearly two hours away from Caticlan by car. 

With this projected big volume of tourists in the coming years, one problem will be the disposal of solid wastes. A good alternative would be to use the compacted, dried wastes for land expansion and reclamation on the Antique side of Aklan. Using previously solid wastes as filling materials for a land reclamation project by the sea was successfully done in Tondo, Manila, using mountains of wastes from the previous "Smokey Mountain".

Anyway, modern technology keeps improving and "big problems" today would be easily addressed tomorrow.

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See also:

Going to Boracay, January 16, 2008

Manila-Mindoro-Iloilo, 2003, November 20, 2005