Please read Part 1 first, "A Strange Kind of Love Affair," = https://tribune.net.ph/2023/11/strange-kind-of-love-affair-1/)

Author's Note. This article is an open letter to the Department of Tourism, hoping it offers valuable input to its long-term tourism strategies. I am offering pro-bono consultations. I was the team leader for an ADB-funded DoT study on the Region VIII (Samar-Leyte) Tourism Master Plan and Region II (Cagayan Valley) master plan circa mid-90s.

In my view, there are three major factors driving Philippine tourism today: 1) beaches; 2) cuisine; 3) heritage.

During the 1990s, tourists from the West sought refuge from the turmoil of their lives in the "paradise"of pristine Philippine beaches. There were three types of foreign tourists: 1) high-end regular tourists (a major source of tourism income) who stayed for a week or so in 3- to 5-star hotels, and went back to their jobs or businesses; 2) low-end backpackers, the professional drifters, who lingered because they were not part of the rat race, and had plenty of time; and 3) expats, such as renegades and drifters, who dug in and decided to live in paradise indefinitely, some escaping secret past crimes.

Phase 1 — The backpacker

The backpackers were the pioneers, having a special role in discovering pristine places unknown to tourists and to the tourism industry and DoT. This was how Boracay and Puerto Galera were born, when there was no electricity or water yet, no hotels, only tents and the makeshift cottages of locals. As a young journalist, myself a former backpacker having hitchhiked through Europe, I had the privilege of seeing these undiscovered places.

I first hit Boracay when it had no electricity or water, just a pure exhilarating 17-kilometer beach of talcum-powder snow-white sand. I walked one afternoon from an orange sunset to a deep-dark evening, groping with no flashlight. It was the best beach walk I ever had, uplifting my spirit. I stayed in a cheap make-shift cottage. I asked the boatman to come back the next day with food and water provisions, so I could stay longer.

Boracay "exploded" after a German backpacker wrote about its beauty in a large-circulation German magazine. In Puerto Galera, it was the same story, French and Scandinavian backpackers sending tantalizing articles and photos back to their local media. No one planned this. It was pure accident. Perhaps DoT could commission foreign backpackers to discover new places.