SUBIC BAY (Philippines) - MS MAY de los Santos used to make laptops and mobile phones at a high-tech Taiwanese electronics factory in the Subic Bay free port, near Manila.

She joined the ranks of the laid off as the global financial crisis kicked in, but the 31-year-old has since been training to work as a chambermaid in a local hotel. 'I don't mind going to these classes. I am used to hard work and the hotel industry is the one with demand for workers', she told AFP.

She is one of an army of laid-off workers who are being retrained to meet the demands of the free port, said Mr Severo Pastor, an official of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, the government agency that oversees the enclave. And these days, he said, that demand is coming from tourism.

Like Ms de los Santos, the port is adapting to the times - transforming from a light industrial zone to a tourism zone and regional logistics hub.

Free port administrator Mr Armand Arreza says Subic's manufacturing future had been in question even before the crisis hit its electronics companies.

For years, low-wage competition from China and Vietnam has been luring companies away and a recent upgrade of Clark, just 75 km from here rendered many of Subic's facilities redundant.

For displaced workers, the government is offering re-training for positions in Subic's tourism industry or even abroad.

Its well-preserved forests, wide seafront and recreational facilities and hotels have always made it popular with tourists and a new highway has made the area even more accessible to day-trippers.

There are no figures on Subic tourist arrivals but Mr Arreza notes that between 8,000 and 10,000 cars of non-free port workers enter Subic everyday, presumably many of them carrying tourists.

Ms Zenaida Pineda, 40, a former electronics worker here, said she now earns as much working as a chambermaid in a Subic hotel as she did at her factory job. 'I like housekeeping more because you can move around, not just stay at your work station. Besides, working on electronics hurt my eyes', she said. -- AFP