Philippines Tourism Secretary Richard Gordon downplayed the effect of the recent attacks on the country's resort destinations including one that occurred at dawn yesterday in western Palawan island where 20 people, including three Americans, were abducted by still unidentified armed men.

"Anything can hurt tourism at the moment. But my point here is, we don't have to tell everybody that we are not in good shape here," Gordon said in a television interview yesterday following the raid at the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan.

The Dos Palmas kidnapping incident occurred just four days after a group of gunmen stormed the Pearl Farm Beach Resort in Samal island on the eastern side of the main southern island of Davao.

Two of the beach resort's private security guards died in an encounter with the group of well-armed gunmen who tried to take the hotel's speedboats. Three of the hotel staff was also wounded and the wharf was destroyed when the gunmen fired a grenade from a rifle-attached launcher at the pursuing guards.

Ten hostages from a nearby village were taken by the gunmen for protection as human shields before they were freed just hours after they were abducted. The authorities later found out that the group was made up of members of the extremist Abu Sayyaf group, notorious for its kidnapping activities.

Gordon, despite the rise in lawlessness in the area, remains optimistic of tourism growth. "There are two islands that have been affected by these abductions," he said, noting that the country has 7,100 islands.

Gordon, last week said that the $2.5 billion Philippine tourism industry was suffering from lower visitor arrivals. The attack at Dos Palmas and at the Pearl Farm were just two of the sensational incidents to occur in the otherwise paradise-like southern and western Philippines islands within a span of four days.

Last Friday, another group of Abu Sayyaf gunmen commandeered a boat packed with 30 people off Basilan island. Basilan and nearby Sulu had previously been the only areas affected by the marauding gunmen who seem to kidnap at whim.

In April last year, Abu Sayyaf gunmen took hostages they abducted from a resort in Malaysia's Sipadan island to Sulu, which is just across the boarder. While the abduction raised security concerns in the Philippines, it also affected eastern Malaysia's thriving tourism industry, especially since the Sipadan raid was carried out at a resort owned by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed's son.

With the Dos Palmas raid, the Sulu Sea, a vast expanse of water round southeastern Palawan, western Mindanao, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi to Malaysia's eastern seaboard in Sabah – once a haven to sea pirates victimising international shipping, has now turned into a virtual no tourist zone.