Why are flights and hotels in Gensan expensive?

Being active in the tourism industry in Gensan, hotels have been asked why there are not a lot of cheap hotels in Gensan. Well, there are cheap-cheap inns but what I think the question was referring to are decent hotels that don’t charge say more than 1,000 pesos.

Until Cebu Pacific came in, the airline ticket for Gensan to Manila and vice-versa was horrendous! It was about 10,000 for a round-trip ticket. It was more expensive than a round-trip ticket to Hongkong! But, lo and behold, when another airline came in, ticket prices were reduced substantially that it was almost a third of the previous rates. Well, I don’t blame Philippine Airlines for charging that much. It was the only airline who cared enough to put a flight to Gensan. If you come to think about it, we should even be thankful for the lone flight. But it was still expensive then. A lot of people were saying, we were fooled for a long time. *smile*

Now, the hunt for cheap tickets is not really hard. If you want the low fares, get on the not-so-busy days. But compared to other cities, our ticket prices are still a notch more expensive. As to the reason why, my theory is that its the frequency of the flight and the load factor. Since Gensan’s load factor says it can only sustain one flight per airline, then they just put one flight. If you only have one flight, it’s like a precious thing that the airline companies can charge what they want.

As to the hotels, it’s because a lot of the things that we need for the hotels are not made in the city and have yet to be bought from other cities like cleaning materials and linen. The hotel-booking market in Gensan also does not really provide the volume that can make hotel owners lower their rates. Therefore, it is a must to cook up some touristic activity in the city. Otherwise, things will pretty much stay as they currently are.