But armed with a budget of only US$660,000, the minister knows he cannot go on a major advertising blitz.
Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore -- which are reaping a bonanza from tourism -- have annual war chests ranging between 45 million dollars to 70 million dollars each.
Asked what lessons the Philippines can learn from its neighbors, he said: "That tourism is the number one business in the world. It's a sunshine industry."
Does he worry that his efforts might be scuppered by the next kidnapping case?
"If I worried about that, then I would not be able to do my job. I don't put fear between my objectives. In fact, I'd rather make fear my friend," the 56-year-old lawyer said.
From Gordon, this may not be an empty boast.
When US troops withdrew from a strategic naval base in Subic Bay north of Manila in 1992, fears were raised of massive unemployment.
With the area already ravaged by the massive eruption of Pinatubo volcano a year earlier, there were also concerns that the infrastructure left by the Americans would go to waste.
But Gordon, then mayor of Olongapo City adjacent to Subic, raised an army of young volunteers who cleaned up the base and guarded it from looters, clearing the way for its conversion into a showcase industrial zone.
"In our country, they always say `Oh, I don't have any money, poor little me I'm gonna cry, nobody loves me.' I don't believe in pity parties. So I have accepted this job and I'll have to do the best I can," he said.
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