Planning your trip

I often ask myself why is it that the Philippines don't get as much or more tourist than other southeast asian countries when obviously we have a very beautiful country. The answer came to me as my husband and I were planning our next Philippine vacation for March, 2008. It's simple really. Booking and reserving anything is a nightmare. Just imagine if I am a European tourist and I have a choice between Thailand and the Philippines, the first thing I would do is contact different resorts, try to see how much the flights cost and how easy the connections would be between the different places I would like to see. If you are planning a vacation in the Philippines, this step is a nightmare! Imagine, we contacted several resorts in Boracay and Donsol and very few of them replied. Boracay Terraces took 2 weeks to reply to my email! Even when I called the resort directly, they told me to please email them instead. Then they didn't reply. I waited anyway because I had been there before and liked it's location but imagine if I would be a normal tourist who really couldn't care less if I go to the Philippines or Thailand, I would decide to go to whoever answers my mail faster and clearer! Donsol we decided not to go anymore because the resort where we wanted to go didn't reply to our email even after we called 3 times. Now, we decided to go to Coron but have a problem booking our flight with Asian Spirit. Their online booking site doesn't work. I called them this morning hoping that I could book the flight through the phone but it is not possible because if I book the flight this way I have to pay within 3 days and they don't accept that I give my credit card information over the phone. The only way to pay is to go to their ticketing office in Manila. Just one problem, I am in Switzerland! The woman who answered the phone said that I better use the online booking system. I protested that I cannot use it because it doesn't work! Only then I was informed that the site only works with Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Nowhere in their site this fact is written. Anyway, even after I used the suggested application it still didn't work! The whole thing is very tiring. Now, I understand why tourists just to go to Thailand.