By Carmela Fonbuena, Newsbreak, abs-cbnNEWS.com | 09/08/2008 6:02 PM
If you ask tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano, it’s not only the Chocolate Hills or the tarsiers that make Bohol one of the country’s favorite destinations of local and foreign tourists.
“The tour guides in Bohol are the best tour guides in the country. We give standard training to local government units. For some reason, their tour guides are university professors or clergymen,” he said before congressmen in today’s briefing on the budget of the Department of Tourism (DOT).
Even if House committee on appropriations vice chairman Quirino Rep. Junie Cua requested that they focus on national policies and refrain from raising “parochial” issues, the congressmen—from Batanes to Davao —alternated telling Durano of the problems of their local tourist spots and asking him about the plans of the DOT in promoting them.
Durano told congressmen the importance of the cooperation between local government units and the private sector to take initiatives to attract visitors.
He cited how an old convent in Bohol was converted to a museum and coffee shop. The tour guide is the dean of a local university. “They have top minds as frontliners in the industry,” Durano said.
He also cited an initiative by the private sector in Bohol . They developed a new offering—a river cruise. At the end of the cruise, the tourists are to meet locals dressed as Ati villagers, a group of indigenous people in Bohol . They would dance and interact with the tourists.
“They’re in their grass skirts and they are given bolos. It’s like in Disneyland ,” Durano said.
Surpassing Targets
Durano reported that the DOT will already meet this year the 2010 target of five million tourist arrivals—inspite of the economic slowdown in the U.S. and Japan.
The top markets from January to July this year are South Korea , U.S. , Japan , China , Taiwan , Hongkong , Australia , Canada , Singapore , U.K. , and Malaysia .
Majority of them come to the Philippines for beach holiday vacation (47.3 percent). Other reasons are to visit friends and realties and to meet business partners.
as of 09/08/2008 6:02 PM
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