The Negros Oriental tourism officials started to improve on the province’s tourism development plan with similar strategies set up in the National Tourism Development Plan.
In a workshop held recently, the Department of Tourism (DOT) with tourism officials from Puerto Princesa and Bohol, whose tourism industries are well-advanced, has urged local government units in Negros Oriental to come up with doable tourism plans in their localities.
“Negros Oriental has a lot of tourism assets and destinations to offer to foreign and local tourist but somehow it lacks technical knowhow on product development, infrastructure support, marketing and promotions,” said DOT officer Warner Andrada.
Tourism is the second industry in the world, while it stimulates economy it also creates local pride, Andrada said as he noted that tourism development should be more sustainable and inclusive.
Andrada challenged the province to replicate the Puerto Princesa and Bohol best practices in tourism development to catch up with the world of tourism industry.
Local government units play a very important role in tourism development to influence other stakeholders to support the industry to grow positively, said tourism operations officer Rebecca Labit of Puerto Princesa City.
“We expect also industry players to be considerate by providing accurate data, for instance the number of foreign and local tourists coming in the province so that the government can create strategic infrastructure development,” Labit said.
The DOT also outlined some factors crucial to tourism development such as the mismatch of promotion of eco-tour destinations, high prices of services and products, eco-cultural against mainstream tourism, uncontrolled environmental law violation, waste disposal problem, lack of marketing strategy and unstable power supply, among others. (mbcn/JCT-PIA 7, Negros Oriental)
