MOBBED, RATHER – in the spirit of the occasion – sold-out was the Baguio leg of the road show of the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) just this past Tuesday.
Well over the expected 130 sitting guests trooped to the CAP-John Hay Trade and Cultural Center to hear the good news of the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA).
Which CIAC President-CEO Victor Jose “Chichos” Luciano happily obliged the leaders of the local tour and travel industry, top businessmen with a sprinkling of Caucasians, government leaders, the Rotary and the Junior Chamber, and virtually the whole press corps of Baguio and some from Pangasinan.
So engaging, if not inspiring, was Chichos’ impromptu remarks and the CIAC’s power-point presentation that a stunning recommendation was raised from the floor: Will Chichos please take over the management of Baguio’s Loakan Airport to raise it from its current state of grazing land for goats and cows?
When the surprised Chichos stammered that a different agency had total control over Loakan, then would it be too much to ask the CIAC CEO to please take the cudgel for Loakan before whatever body that controlled it?
Of course, Chichos took the task of “coordinating” with the Department of Transportation and Communication and its allied agencies for Loakan, as inter-phased with DMIA’s development as premier gateway.
The prospect of the DMIA providing direct service to the people of Baguio and Northern Philippines stirred some bullish excitement – the sense of hyperbole there actual and not merely for effect – on the audience, most naturally with the tour and travel sector. The Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway greatly factored there, what with travel time greatly reduced.
The best selling point articulated by Chichos – that which I believe really roped the audience into the DMIA corral, to speak crudely unsalesmanlike – was the DMIA being not just Clark’s but “the very own airport of Central and Northern Luzon.”
“Our own, our very own” Chichos stressed at each mention of the DMIA, taking all the people North of Manila in collective possession of the airport.
So who would not patronize, even love, one’s own?
There and then, by vesting some sort of proprietary rights in them, Chichos won not just customers but stakeholders for the DMIA. One coup of a sale there!
The raffle of free tickets from DMIA’s airline partners – Asiana Airlines, Tiger Airways, SEAIR, Air Asia, Zest Air and Cebu Pacific – serving to spice up the start of that new relationship.
One helluva salesman, Chichos Luciano truly makes. That the Baguio road show clearly…er, showed. That proven beyond the tiniest iota of doubt by the fact that even as the global economic crunch hit hard at the aviation industry in the Asia-Pacific region by as much as 15 percent drop, the DMIA registered a 27 percent increase.
Now were, some other CIAC character as aggressive in selling the DMIA as in selling real estate, think how much higher “our airport” could have soared.
Well over the expected 130 sitting guests trooped to the CAP-John Hay Trade and Cultural Center to hear the good news of the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA).
Which CIAC President-CEO Victor Jose “Chichos” Luciano happily obliged the leaders of the local tour and travel industry, top businessmen with a sprinkling of Caucasians, government leaders, the Rotary and the Junior Chamber, and virtually the whole press corps of Baguio and some from Pangasinan.
So engaging, if not inspiring, was Chichos’ impromptu remarks and the CIAC’s power-point presentation that a stunning recommendation was raised from the floor: Will Chichos please take over the management of Baguio’s Loakan Airport to raise it from its current state of grazing land for goats and cows?
When the surprised Chichos stammered that a different agency had total control over Loakan, then would it be too much to ask the CIAC CEO to please take the cudgel for Loakan before whatever body that controlled it?
Of course, Chichos took the task of “coordinating” with the Department of Transportation and Communication and its allied agencies for Loakan, as inter-phased with DMIA’s development as premier gateway.
The prospect of the DMIA providing direct service to the people of Baguio and Northern Philippines stirred some bullish excitement – the sense of hyperbole there actual and not merely for effect – on the audience, most naturally with the tour and travel sector. The Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway greatly factored there, what with travel time greatly reduced.
The best selling point articulated by Chichos – that which I believe really roped the audience into the DMIA corral, to speak crudely unsalesmanlike – was the DMIA being not just Clark’s but “the very own airport of Central and Northern Luzon.”
“Our own, our very own” Chichos stressed at each mention of the DMIA, taking all the people North of Manila in collective possession of the airport.
So who would not patronize, even love, one’s own?
There and then, by vesting some sort of proprietary rights in them, Chichos won not just customers but stakeholders for the DMIA. One coup of a sale there!
The raffle of free tickets from DMIA’s airline partners – Asiana Airlines, Tiger Airways, SEAIR, Air Asia, Zest Air and Cebu Pacific – serving to spice up the start of that new relationship.
One helluva salesman, Chichos Luciano truly makes. That the Baguio road show clearly…er, showed. That proven beyond the tiniest iota of doubt by the fact that even as the global economic crunch hit hard at the aviation industry in the Asia-Pacific region by as much as 15 percent drop, the DMIA registered a 27 percent increase.
Now were, some other CIAC character as aggressive in selling the DMIA as in selling real estate, think how much higher “our airport” could have soared.
