Cebu province, CCCI tie up for Turismo Sugbo

TOURISTS can expect warmer hospitality and better-quality accommodation, products and attraction packages as the Cebu provincial government recently signed a program titled “Turismo Sugbo” with the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI).

The two-year project, which will run from 2012 to 2014, aims to complement the success of Suroy-Suroy Sugbo, their flagship public-private partnership. Turismo Sugbo will help tourism stakeholders by evaluating each municipality’s tourism initiative and potential, said Tourism Congress chairman Teresa Chan.

“We hope to standardize and enhance the quality of Cebu province’s community-based tourism services, which we hope to impact on the whole brand of Cebu as a tourist destination.”

Turismo Sugbo is a collaboraton of the Province of Cebu, the CCCI, local government units (LGUs) as well as partner schools and universities.

Twelve LGUs confirmed their participation in the program. They include Dalaguete, Liloan, Pilar, Tudela, Carcar City, Ronda, Alcoy, Toledo City, Sogod, Dumanjug, Moalboal and Aloguinsan.

They are tasked to manage the team of evaluators, comprised mainly of students from seven partner schools—the Asian College of Technology, Benedicto College, Cebu Normal University, Southwestern University, University of Cebu, University of San Jose-Recoletos and the University of Southern Philippines Foundation.

According to Chan, the universities have agreed to include this in the curriculum of students taking up tourism-related courses.

CCCI will mentor the student-evaluators who will be creating a tourism package for each municipality.

A budget of P15,000 will be provided by the Cebu provincial government to each team to cover evaluation expenses.

Chan said that they target to finish everything by June this year.

Outputs from each team will be presented to Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia and other industry players during the Tourism Congress on June 20 as part of the celebration of Cebu Business Month.

Chan said they aim to finish everything on the same month.

“We want to improve our products. With everyone’s cooperation and support, I believe Turismo Sugbo is the way to do it,” she said.