Macau Tourism promoter to be awarded P15 Million bid for formulating Philippine National Tourism Development Plan

DoT Bidding for National Tourism Development Plan, LUTONG MACAU?

The Department of Tourism (DoT) is about to award or has already awarded a P15 Million contract to Indra Philippines/Asia Pacific Projects despite failing to pass the score requirement for the bid.

The DoT recently bid out a contract for the development of a 5-Year National Tourism Development Plan and required that the winning bidder should garner a score of at least 85 %.  The National Tourism Development Plan will basically tell the entire Philippine Tourism industry what areas will be developed for tourism and how it will be marketed to the entire world.  Read that as crafting the master plan which will mark out where billions of pesos of tourism development and promotion funds will go.

Suddenly, the P 5 Million spent on the non-launch of the failed "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" tourism slogan seems like a drop in the bucket. 

Indra Philippines/Asia Pacific Projects consortium scored 83.5 in the technical proposal submitted to the department’s bid and awards committee.  Palafox Associates, the architectural firm of Felino Palafox Jr., got a score of 76 percent.  SMEC Philippines/Tourism Resource Consultants, P-Square Associates and Woodfields Consultants participated in the bid and garnered even lower scores.

Asia Pacific Projects' key principal is Narz Lim, the  Macau Government Tourist Office-Philippines General Manager. (Refer to the last paragraph of an article by Inquirer Lifestyle columnist Maurice Arcache http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/lifestyle/lifestyle/view/20090317-194682/Dazzling-golden-anniversary)

What is funny is that after informing the bidders of the scores of their respective bids where in all failed to meet the required 85%, they were informed in another meeting that Asia Pacific Projects actually won the bid after the scores were "transmuted".

From a "raw score" of 83 percent, Indra Philippines/Asia Pacific Projects suddenly got a grade of 87 percent -- meeting the score requirement for the bid.

LUTONG MACAU

Under other circumstances, perhaps the other bidders would have asked for a re-bidding of the project and given themselves additional time to make the grade.  However, for some reason, all the other participating bidders just decided to walk away from the table.

And that some reason is Narzalina "Narz" Z. Lim -- who is of no relation to the current Tourism Secretary Alberto "Bertie" Lim.  But that is not to say that the two don't have a history, working together in the Freedom-to-Fly Coalition that advocated open-skies in the Philippines.  Both are also staunch Cory and Noynoy supporters.

According to the Asia Pacific Projects website, comprising the other part of the consortium 

Narzalina Z. Lim is a key principal who established APPI in 1992 after many years serving as Undersecretary and later Secretary of Tourism of the Philippines. Her areas of expertise are in tourism planning and development, policy formulation, and human resource development and training. She graduated with a Masters degree in English Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Narz Lim was Undersecretary of Tourism during Cory Aquino's time from 1986 to 1991 and then served as Secretary of Tourism in 1992.

In addition to this, word is that Narz Lim led Asia Pacific Projects in helping craft the previous National Tourism Development Plan which didn't fair too well.

A number of people have said that the previous National Tourism Development Plan was of dubious value since not many in the tourism industry knew about it and those who knew about it found it "unimplementable."

A tourism business operator opined:

I had been in the INBOUND Tourism business since 1984, more than 25 years now, and there had been TOURISM MASTER DEVELOPMENT PLANS galore. All these brilliant Touirsm Master Plans were just rotting away in file , even their old rusty filing cabinets cannot be found already! I had been looking for this in Boracay too but to no avail! Each Administration to each his own political agenda... or worse kanya kanyang kurakot so no solid long term SUSTAINABLE Development & Tourism plans are implemented! 

Apart from ignoring the dubious value of the previous NTDP, the more disconcerting fact perhaps is the tip off that Narz Lim is already working  as the representative of the Macau Tourism Office in Manila.

See this Google Search for Narz Lim and Macau Tourism here.

I don't know if the Department of Tourism took it into consideration that the head of the corporation that is going to create our country's tourism plan for the next five years is actually being paid a bigger amount to sell Macau Tourism.

The thing is, the news media ain't picking this up... Masarap siguro ang Lechong Macau.