Ooh la la! More French tourists coming to PH

MANILA, Philippines—From a “question mark,” the Philippines is slowly becoming a destination to check out for the French.

Tourist traffic from France is gradually picking up amid growing interest in the Philippines, about which the French virtually know nothing, French Ambassador to Manila Gilles Garachon said on Monday night.

French awareness of the Philippines has been increasing of late as cultural, political and academic exchanges between the two countries increase, said Garachon, who has been serving in Manila since 2012.

“It’s starting. There is a momentum. And I think we have to keep this momentum. This is going to increase, I’m sure. There is plenty of room to increase the relations—of course there is cultural relations, but also in the field of trade, in the field of politics, also the exchange of students between universities,” Garachon said on the sidelines of the French Embassy’s celebration of Bastille Day at his Makati City residence.

Embassy data showed French tourist arrivals in the Philippines increased by 14 percent from 29,591 in 2011 to 33,709 in 2012.

Main difficulty

Garachon said promoting the Philippines in France was his “main difficulty “as an ambassador, as most French knew only nations that figured in their history.

“French people… see the geography very linked to history. And if a country has historical links with France, then it appears on the map. But for the Philippines, we never had any historical connection. Not at all. So for French people, the Philippines is just a question mark,” Garachon said.

“So part of my job and part of the job of the ambassador of the Philippines in Paris is to make French people discover more about the Philippines,” said Garachon, who had been posted to Hong Kong, Jakarta and Bangkok before being assigned to Manila.

Texting PH envoy

According to Garachon, he is constantly in touch with Philippine Ambassador to France Cristina Ortega, hoping to coordinate their efforts to boost people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

“I text the Philippine ambassador in Paris every week. We exchange a lot of information and we work very much closely together,” Garachon said.

He is optimistic that air services negotiations between the Philippines and the European Union would lead to the reopening of European destinations to Philippine airlines.

The European Union is set to decide Wednesday on the Philippines’ bid to lift a ban on Philippine airlines in Europe.

“[I hope] it will work out. We don’t have any direct flight to Europe now. And there should be, because to go to France from the Philippines, it takes 24 hours. If there were a direct flight, it would take only 12 hours. So we all look forward to having those direct flights. I think it’s going to happen,” Garachon said.

Philippine exhibit

The Philippines is boosting its image in France with a three-month exhibit of precolonial art at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.

The exhibit, “Philippines: Archipel des échanges” (Philippines: An Archipelago of Exchanges), opened on April 9 and will end on July 14, coinciding with France’s National Day.

“I think this exhibit is a great occasion. [All over] Paris, you had a signboard about this exhibit about the Philippines, with beautiful pictures,” Garachon said.

“People loved it and because they were discovering something completely new. In France, nobody knows about the art of the Philippines. And so they discovered it and they enjoyed it very much,” he said.

The exhibit brings together Philippine precolonial art and artifacts from collections in the Philippines, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and the United States.

It is the largest exhibit of Philippine art in Europe, according to the French Embassy in Manila.

Originally posted: 7:58 pm | Tuesday, July 9th, 2013