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Deborah Fromer

Philippines lags behind ASEAN neighbors in competitiveness as a tourist destination | B... - 0 views

www.bworldonline.com/content.php

travel tourism communication business

shared by Deborah Fromer on 04 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • THE PHILIPPINES is lagging behind most of its neighbors in Southeast Asia in terms of its competitiveness as a tourism destination, a recent report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) showed, citing insufficiencies especially when it comes to business environment and infrastructure.
  • Based on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) "Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2012," the Philippines ranks seventh out of the eight ASEAN member countries included in the report.
  • The country
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  • trailed behind Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam.
  • In ranking the countries, WEF used three subindices that include several categories.
  • In the second subindex of business environment and infrastructure, the categories are air and ground transport infrastructures; information and communication technology infrastructure; and price competitiveness.
  • The Philippines lagged behind the most in the second subindex.
  • It was, however, offset by the ratings the Philippines got for the other categories in that subindex, which ranged from 2.5 to 2.8.
  • Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez, Jr. said "the figures are not consistent with the continuous growth (average of 16%) of foreign tourist arrivals." "Be that as it may, we are determined to improve country competitiveness in all aspects," he said in a text message yesterday. -- A. E. Barrameda
  • Deborah Fromer on 04 Jun 12
     
    The World Economic Forum (WEF) has indicated that the Philippines is lagging behind in tourism travel due the lack of business environment and infrastructure. There were four millions visitors in 2011 to the Philippines; but based on a Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report in 2012, by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) the Philippines is behind in tourism and one of the reasons is the information and communication infrastructure. It is behind countries like Malaysia and Indonesia ranking very low. The Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez, Jr. indicated, by text, that the figures don't match the growing tourist arrivals and they will improve their countries' competitiveness in all areas.
  • Deborah Fromer on 04 Jun 12
     
    This is interesting since this country is very familiar with the English language, something Americans prefer when traveling, and the travel by Philippine Americans back to the Philippines is frequent for business purposes, but it seems that helping to build a better communication infrastructure is not on the top of there business agendas.
Kamini Ramsaran

Delivering Better Internet Marketing Tools to the Tourism Industry is More Fun in the P... - 0 views

www.timesunion.com/...eting-Tools-to-the-3662708.php

Philippines online travel marketing hotels internet

shared by Kamini Ramsaran on 17 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Hotel Link Solutions, a new company that provides easy-to-understand and comprehensive digital-marketing solutions to accommodation providers, is poised to extend its reach into the Philippines.
  • Hotel Link Solutions services are specifically designed to help small- and medium-sized businesses harness the power and reach of the internet to boost a hotel's visibility and facilitate effortless online booking.
  • 5.53 percent increase in inbound tourists between 2012 and2016.
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  • Hotel Link Solutions expects more than 1,000 hotels in the Philippines will have access to digital-marketing packages by 2015, following in the footsteps of a handful of websites already live and operational in the Philippines.
  • “Our own Department of Tourism considers that the major problem facing the Philippines is a lack of awareness,”
  • “I am excited to see the long-term effect of enabling hundreds of hotels to become visible online for the independent travel market.
  • Kamini Ramsaran on 17 Jul 12
     
    Hotel Link Solutions a company that provides user friendly digital marketing solutions has taken a presence in the Philippines targeting small and medium sized hotel businesses.  There is a huge lack of awareness in the Philippines and Hotel Link Solutions plans to make online services such a hotel-website services, booking widgets, channel management and social media services available and easy to use for hotel managers and owners. By 2015 Hotel Link Solutions expects more than 1,000 hotels to have the digital marketing packages with their help.  
marble_bird

Roche2016_Article_RecreationalDivingImpactsOnCor.pdf - 0 views

shared by marble_bird on 07 Jul 20 - No Cached
  • Recreational diving on coral reefs is an activity that has experienced rapidly growing levels of popularity and participation.
  • the potential role of dive impacts in contributing to coral reef damage is a concern at heavily dived locations. Management measures to address this issue increasingly include the introduction of programmes designed to encourage environmentally responsible practices within the dive industry.
  • Coral reefs are a threatened, but globally important ecosystem, providing key services to local communities such as coastal defence, sediment production, and fisheries benefits
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  • The role of dive supervision was assessed by recording dive guide interventions underwater, and how this was affected by dive group size.
  • Over recent decades, tourism activities benefiting from the pleasing aesthetics and biodiversity of coral reefs, primarily SCUBA diving and snorkelling, have experienced rapidly increasing numbers of participants globally
  • We found evidence that the ability of dive guides to intervene and correct diver behaviour in the event of a reef contact decreases with larger diver group sizes. Divers from operators with high levels of compliance with the Green Fins programme exhibited significantly lower reef contact rates than those from dive operators with low levels of compliance.
  • Damage to corals on dived reefs often occurs as a result of skeletal breakage, particularly in branching species (Guzner et al. 2010;H a s l e ra n dO t t 2008). Tissue abrasion can also result from diver contact (Hawkins et al. 1999), and a recent study reported a higher incidence of coral disease in areas heavily used for recreational diving
  • It is possible that other diver characteristics such as qualification level or dive experience may affect the ability to respond to dive briefings, although several studies have failed to find a correlation between divers’ reef contact rates and experience
  • Due to the difficulties of effectively addressing global stressors, an emerging recommendation is the focus of coral reef management on local scales (e.g. Anthony et al. 2014). A frequent challenge facing managers and policy makers at local levels relates to the maximisation of tourism benefits whilst simultaneously reducing its environmental impacts
  • Alternatively, previous experience and possible affinity and attachment to a specific dive site may influence how closely divers follow pre-dive briefings and affect their behaviour underwater, as suggested by place attachment theory
  • The methodologies which have been developed to minimise the environmental impact of SCUBA diving on coral reefs can be summarised as follows: (1) managing or restricting diver numbers, (2) regulating the locations in which SCUBA diving activities occur, (3) regulating the types of equipment used, and 4) implementing programmes which seek to manage the methods used by the dive industry in providing their services. Restricting diver numbers is based on the concept of a reef dive site’s ‘carrying capacity’; a level beyond which diving impacts become readily apparent.
  • Restriction of SCUBA diving equipment has focused on banning the use of accessories believed to increase reef contacts within marine protected areas such as gloves, muck sticks, or underwater cameras; however, such regulations are often unpopular within the SCUBA diving community
  • Governments and reef managers seek evidence that the effort expended in implementing programmes translates into measurable benefits; however, research into the effectiveness of such programmes at influencing diver behaviour and reducing diving impacts is limited.
  • In this study, we focused on dive operators participating in the Green Fins diving programme at three major dive locations within the Philippines.
  • Nonetheless, levels of dive supervision underwater would intuitively appear to be linked to rates of reef contact, and when examined, the willingness of dive guides to intervene in correcting diver behaviour underwater has been found to significantly reduce diver contact rates
  • Malapascua Island, Moalboal, and Puerto Galera.
  • divers may have been aware that a Green Fins compliance assessment was taking place, but they were unaware that diver contacts with the reef were being specifically recorded. Green Fins environmental assessments and diver observations were conducted simultaneously.
  • Dive guides and guest divers from 44 dive operators participating in the Green Fins programme were followed
  • Diver characteristics with potential to influence underwater behaviour were categorised as the following factors: diver qualification level (three levels), dive experience (five levels), and previous number of dives at site (three levels).
  • Divers were assigned a unique diver number, and then followed and observed underwater for the entire duration of their dive.
  • If the overall group was very large such that the dive guide could not be seen from the rear of the group, the pair immediately behind the dive guide was selected.
  • Compliance with the Green Fins approach was determined by utilising diver contact rates and dive guide intervention rates as at the dependent variables of interest, and by defining dive operators according to those who had received a high score (above the median score) versus those with a low score (below the median score) on the most recent conducted Green Fins assessment
  • The part of the body or item of equipment making contact with the reef was recorded as follows: hand, fin, knee, camera, muck stick (a handheld stainless steel or aluminium rod approximately 30 cm in length) and equipment (e.g. tank, submersible pressure gauges, octopus regulator), and multiple (parts of the body and equipment simultaneously). The time during the dive at which the contact occurred was also recorded.
  • If observable damage (i.e. breakage, obvious physical damage, or injury) occurred as a result of the contact this was recorded, together with the apparent awareness of the diver to the contact, regardless of damage caused.
  • Contacts made with a camera (77.7 %) accounted for the highest proportion of contacts which resulted in damage, followed by contacts made with the knee (43.3 %), multiple body and equipment parts (38.2 %), equipment (30.7 %), fins (29.8 %), hands (24.7 %), and muck sticks (23.5 %).
  • A total of 100 SCUBA divers were observed at three diving locations within the Philippines (Table 1). The majority (72 %) of these divers were male, and diving experience ranged from those completing diving training to those who were instructors elsewhere with experience of hundreds of dives.
  • Following dive completion, divers that had been observed underwater were asked to complete a survey to determine diver characteristics.
  • Most contacts were made with fins (45.5 %, n = 261); however, hands (19.5 %, n = 112) and dive equipment (15.9 %, n = 91) were also major contributors to the total number of contacts
  • Interventions were defined as an event in which the dive guide intervened in diver behaviour through signalling or demonstrating correct behaviour in order to minimise or prevent contact with the reef.
  • A total of 81 interventions were observed (in comparison to 573 reef contacts—see Fig. 4 for the distribution of contacts and interventions);
  • Camera systems were carried by 55 % of divers; camera-wielding divers accounted for 52.7 % of the total contacts made with the reef. Of divers who utilised a camera, 35 % carried a non-specialist compact type and 20 % carried an SLR type within a specialist underwater housing.
  • Mean (±SE) dive time was 49.3 ± 0.42 min. A total of 573 diver contacts with the reef were recorded during all assessed dives.
  • The difference in the frequency of interventions was statistically significant (ANOVA, f = 4.81, P = 0.03)
  • although a significant portion (36 %) appeared unaware of the contact they made with the reef.
  • In addition to overall contact levels, some studies have also quantified reef contacts either as the mean number of contacts per diver over the duration of a dive or the diver contact rate per minute of dive time. The mean contact rates of 5.7 contacts per dive, or 0.12 contacts per min, which we observed at dive sites in the Philippines are lower than those previously reported
  • All divers observed within the present study were diving with operators participating to various degrees in the Green Fins environmentally responsible diving programme.
  • Identifying factors and policy measures which influence SCUBA diver behaviour underwater can help coral reef managers determine where to most effectively focus effort and funding with respect to dive management. In this study, we found that 88 % of the divers observed made at least one contact with the reef at some point
  • Divers who are more conservation aware and who contact the reef less may preferentially choose to dive with environmentally ‘accredited’ dive operators; indeed, this assumption partially drives dive operator participation in such programmes.
  • Underwater interventions by dive guides have been suggested to be the most successful deterrent to diver contact with reefs (Barker and Roberts 2004). In this study, there was no significant difference in the intervention rates between dive centres of high and low Green Fins compliance. Therefore, we cannot attribute the observed difference in diver reef contact rates to differences in intervention rates between these two groups.
  • Studies examining the effect of carrying camera equipment on the frequency of diver contacts with the reef have produced conflicting results.
  • Additionally, the administration of a pre-dive briefing can influence diver contact rates underwater (Medio et al. 1997). The Green Fins programme incorporates the use of a pre-dive briefing that emphasises the importance of refraining from contacting the reef, which would be expected to result in lower diver contact rates.
  • A concern amongst representatives of the diving industry is the use of muck sticks to manipulate animals unnecessarily—pushing animals out of holes for better viewing, stressing animals to show customers their stress behaviour (e.g. an octopus changing colour), and physically breaking hard coral to be used in photographs.
  • When examining the part of the body or dive equipment which made contact with the reef, we found that the majority of contacts were made with fins, in agreement with Krieger and Chadwick (2013) and Rouphael and Inglis (1998).
  • It has previously been noted that dive guides customarily perform different roles at dive locations globally; at some locations, they act primarily to lead the dive group around the reef, whilst at others, pairing with and closely supervising individual divers throughout the course of a dive
  • this suggests that dive guides carry out the closest supervision during the initial phase of the dive and then switch to a ‘dive leader’ role at the front of a dive group.
  • This study provides evidence that the effective implementation of environmentally responsible practices, via programmes designed to reduce diving impacts, may translate to reduced diver reef contacts.
  • Many diver characteristics which might intuitively be expected to impact reef contact rates, such as level of qualification and overall experience, were not significant influencing factors in this study, and high versus low levels of Green Fins compliance did not influence the number of interventions made by dive guides underwater.
  • For continued economic benefit and conservation of Philippine reef dive locations, we recommend that management measures facilitate high levels of compliance with environmentally responsible diving programmes to reduce the impact of diving on coral reefs.
  • marble_bird on 07 Jul 20
     
    This article discusses a study performed at various diving locations in the Philippines to determine whether or not measures taken by Green Fin diving guides were effective in reducing contact with coral reef systems. The study also recorded the average number of contacts with the reef during a dive, as well as the equipment or body part which came into contact with the reef most often, and which actions resulted in the most damage. The study finds that adherence to Green Fin standards or other policies may significantly impact diver behaviors and reduce the level of contact with sensitive coral reefs during SCUBA dives.
sigomezsh

The Human and Environmental Effects of E-Waste | PRB - 0 views

www.prb.org/...vironmental-effects-of-e-waste

technology ewaste

shared by sigomezsh on 21 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Informal recycling markets in China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and the Philippines handle anywhere from 50 percent to 80 percent of this e-waste, often shredding, burning, and dismantling the products in “backyards.”
  • Currently, an estimated 70 percent of e-waste handled in India is from other nations, but the UNEP estimates that between 2007 and 2020, domestic television e-waste will double, computer e-waste will increase five times, and cell phones 18 times.
  • The informal sector’s recycling practices magnify health risks.
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  • Guiyu is known as the largest e-waste recycling site in the world, and the city’s residents exhibit substantial digestive, neurological, respiratory, and bone problems. For example, 80 percent of Guiyu’s children experience respiratory ailments, and are especially at risk of lead poisoning.
  • The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal bans the exchange of hazardous waste, including e-waste, between developed and developing countries.
  • The United States is the largest generator of e-waste worldwide and the only industrialized nation not yet ratifying the Basel Convention.
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