21st Philippine Travel Mart: September 3-5, 2010

Says Cesar Cruz, PHILTOA president, “The 21st Philippine Travel Mart is the perfect venue for Filipinos to be aware of (the) endless tourist attractions and destinations the country has to offer.”

This annual event showcases the best attractions, the best deals and the tour operators that offer these services. As a tour operator myself, I always try to make it a point to attend this affair, because it gives me a sense of belonging. I've always, always enjoyed traveling, seeing new places, and what better place to get all the information I need than the Philippine Travel Mart?

And this time, I am preparing to introduce myself to the association that is bringing this major event to life each year. The Philippine Tour Operators Association (PHILTOA) "is the single largest association of registered tour operators in the Philippines that exclusively promotes in-bound and domestic tourism." (http://www.philtoa.org) Maybe get a chance to join them, if they'll accept my application.

This year also, it's a double hit for me, because my high school Alma Mater (Philippine Science High School) is holding its 44th Annual Homecoming this Saturday, September 4, and my batch (1990) will be celebrating its 20th year (wow, it's been that long already???).

See you at the Mart!

Why I Went Into Touring

I've had people come up to me - mostly old-time agriculturists - and ask, somewhat skeptically, why I'm not practicing my profession. In fact, they are amazed that I'm doing something totally unrelated to agriculture, and that's coordinating tours.

Somehow the only answer I can come up with is: I want to serve.

In agriculture school, they teach you what's the best crop to plant in a certain area, how to grow it, how to protect it from pests and diseases, how to cultivate it to get the biggest, juiciest, heaviest, most organically grown product, and then when you graduate, you are set free to go out into the world and practice your degree. What they failed to mention was that about 90 percent of your time is spent out there in the field, and only about 10 percent is spent interacting with people.

Now, don't get me wrong. I was so super introverted back in college, that it must not have come as a surprise to my family and friends that I would choose agriculture as my course. Heck, I had transfered from Molecular Biology (which would have turned me into an intellectual labrat, if I'd pursued it) so the result would pretty much have been the same. But it wasn't what I was looking for.

I guess, if I knew then what I know now, I'd probably have taken something like Business Administration or Journalism, or even Tourism. Because then I'd learn how to develop my verbal skills and graduate with the knowledge that I'd actually have a foot (standing) out in the real world. I might also have discovered earlier that I'm very much an extrovert and enjoy meeting new people.

I want to serve. You can't really serve others when you're doing field work, out there, under the scorching sun, praying for the clouds you glimpsed over in the horizon to scoot and drop their loads onto your withering seedlings, now can you?

More specifically, I want to be able to give of myself to others. And since I have always, always, always loved to travel, it just clicked that I should give of myself while traveling. So here we are.