Cash only destinations limit RP tourism drive
The swarm of tourists visiting famed tourist spots in the country such as Donsol in Sorsogon would be way bigger if more establishments in these areas would have point-of-sale (PoS) registers to allow the use of credit cards, Ian Jamieson, the country manager of global payments system Visa for Guam and the Philippines, said.
Jamieson recounted a visit to Donsol which is famous for resorts that feature whale sharks including swimming with the huge sea mammals but these establishments only accept cash as payments.
Jamieson was impressed with the unique experience communing with the sea creatures which he said would have been a lot more memorable had he not been saddled with the hassle of forking out cash everytime.
Some 5.79 million Visa cards have already been issued in the country and the brand is accepted by thousands of merchants nationwide who collectively handled about $1 billion worth of transactions in the quarter ending December 2010 alone.
Jamieson lamented that tourist facilities in Donsol do not own a single PoS register.
He noted even Department of Tourism personnel collecting fees as part of the whale shark experience accept only cash.
Jamieson said cash-only transactions at Donsol are unsafe, unsound and certainly very inefficient for a country aspiring to sell its numerous tourist attractions when its facilities cannot compete with the world class equipment of its competitors.
He brought up the lack of PoS registers in Donsol with the consortium of banks under Megalink whose executives vowed to look into the matter.
Jamieson said when a tourist runs out of cash in Donsol, one has to travel to Legazpi City which is about an hour’s drive away to withdraw cash.
“There is definitely a need to improve the facilities of lovely niche tourist destinations like Donsol,” he said.
Jamieson said the Philippines has plenty of upside potential for payment systems like Visa given, for example, the estimated 60 million prepaid mobile phone whose full financial potential have not been explored to date.
The Visa brand is sold locally under a co-branding scheme with such bank brands as Banco de Oro, the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Manila unit of the British-owned lender HSBC, among others.
Some 1.8 billion Visa cards are in use globally that in 2010 were used in transactions worth $3.3 trillion, according to Jamieson.
The greater bulk of the transactions or $2 trillion were in credit cards and $1.3 trillion were debit cards. CL
05/11/2011 / http://www.tribuneonline.org/business/20110511bus10.html
