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Market research

For Filipino tourists, Taiwan’s night markets are interesting primarily because of the diverse food offerings, but also for the fact that what they have done looks like something that we could also do, especially in ‘foodie’ destinations like Bacolod.

I thought about this while I was looking at some friend’s photos of a recent trip to the Raohe Night Market in Taipei, and while missing the pepper pork buns from there, I also remembered thinking how they could pull it off multiple night markets in one city, consistently and sustainably, and wondering why Filipinos cannot do the same.

Is it because Taipei has so much more food tourists than the Philippines? This would be the most likely explanation, because there doesn’t seem to be a way for a daily night market to be able to sustain itself, unless there was a practically never ending supply of tourists. If this is the case, then it would seem like we have a long way to go before we get enough tourists or customers to sustain the operations of any night market that can operate every day. For a city like Bacolod, that would be an almost impossible goal, and all we can target would be the temporary festival night markets.

Is it the quantity and variety of the food that makes their night markets more feasible? If you come to think of it, that is also a possibility because when we have our night markets, what we get are usually just the same old chicken inasal and beer stalls, which hardly offer any variety. This means unless you have friends or a suki to keep coming back to, it can get pretty old and boring pretty fast. It’s not a market if there is no variety, so cities that want to replicate those night markets might have to pay attention and provide the necessary support to allow more diversity in the offerings as well.

Maybe they just have better planning and regulations for their night markets, which may look easy to replicate but could actually have been through a well thought out process before being implemented. Being deliberate could be integral in making sure that the offerings are sustainable and the atmosphere remains friendly and secure for both tourists and locals, instead of being short-term attractions. The plan-less, first come, first served method for accepting market tenants that we currently employ may work for temporary festival set ups, but if a full time, year-round night market is going to be a goal, a lot more thought may have to go into such a public-private partnership. As mentioned earlier, offering the same old inasal and beer stalls stops becoming interesting pretty quickly, and anything that cannot hold interest is probably not sustainable as well.

I only thought about night markets because at first blush, it looks so easy to replicate here in the Philippines, which made me wonder why we cannot pull it off the way they can. All you need is a street and some vendors who can make and sell decent food at affordable prices. The ones in Taipei didn’t even look that different from our street markets that are full of umbrellas and awnings have proper roofs, so when it rains, everyone is bound to get wet. But that hasn’t stopped their night markets from being the year-long, massively popular attractions that they are. If you come to think of it, these kinds of things just don’t happen randomly or sprout up organically. They have to be planned and regulated, and that is probably the secret sauce to their success.

Successful night markets are a chicken and egg situation. As far as we are concerned, we have the cuisine, delicacies, and unique products that can provide enough variety to power a decent one if we really wanted. However, it cannot be a good and sustainable night market if there are not enough tourists, but the thing is that you can’t have enough tourists if you don’t have a good night market, especially for a provincial destination like Bacolod.

In our case, it would seem prudent to get our tourism numbers to a decent level before we even start thinking of copying any of the successful Asian night markets, if that is the target market we are going for. However, if we think that a domestic-focused night market would be a good idea, then maybe those interested could pitch it to their local government officials, just to see if it is feasible, beyond the usual 1-month-maximum festival markets that pop up at our town plazas or temporarily close down some streets during big festivals like Bacolod’s MassKara or Bacolaodiat.

To be fair to Bacolod, the newish night food market at the Upper East area seems to be thriving so far, giving it some potential. With a little bit of luck and foresight, along with more thoughtful regulation and curating, it could become something more. The direction it will go will depend on the people who have the power to determine the fate of such projects.*

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