Camotes folks offer homes to tourists

For backpackers and budget-conscious individuals, who want to enjoy summer in Camotes Island, residents of San Francisco town now offers a home stay program for them to avail.

With the boom in its tourism, the town mayor has opted to encourage locals to offer the comfort of their homes to tourists.

A 30-minute drive on board a private vehicle, the homes of the Gocela family is open for local and foreign tourists.

Alice Gocela, a 54-year-old resident in barangay Santiago, begun her own home stay program in May 2012.

Her family owns a one story building made of nipa materials. The building is fronting the Santiago Bay, a known beach and tourist destination in the island.

The building has three rooms and a small bathroom. But only two rooms are for rent for P400 a night. Gocela said they were intended for backpackers who wanted a cost-efficient and convenient place to stay.

Originally, the rooms were intended for her three children, who are now working in Cebu City, as their vacation house. The idea of having tourists rent their homes came up after one of Gocela’s children asked her to accommodate some of his officemates in their vacation house.

Since then, she started accommodating tourists in the vacation house.

Gocela showed the CDN team the rooms. It has two windows made out of bamboos. There is a soli-soli mat placed on the wooden floor and a foam bed on top of it.

Gocela said tourists get a free use of water and bathroom.

Gocela said the home stay program helped her family earn additional income.

She also said they were fully-booked for the summer.

TENTS

Apart from the rooms, Gocela said they also have tents for rent that costs P200, good for two persons and good for an overnight use.

Mayor Aly Arquillano said he started  promoting this program in his town since last year.

Arquillano told reporters that they had experienced a shortage of rooms due to the increase in number of local and foreign tourists visiting there.

He advised the townsfolk to make use of this as a means of alternative livelihood.

“We have experienced a room shortage last year. We’ve had a hard time looking for accommodations for them. They’ve asked the municipality for help. That’s why we have developed this. It’s a type of livelihood,” he said in Cebuano.

soli-soli festival

Arquillano earlier said that they relied on their Soli-Soli Festival to entice tourists and draw more investors to set up businesses in their area.

He also said that the festival gave the municipal government an opportunity to market their town to small and big investors.

According to the town’s budget officer Nida Arquillano, the town’s income increased from P7 million in 2011 to P9 to P10 million last year.

Last March 17, it has celebrated its 12th Soli-Soli festival with six participating contingents clustered from the town’s 15 barangays.

Soli-Soli Festival celebrates the abundance of the native Soli-Soli Grass that contributes a lot to the livelihood of the townsfolk.

The festival falls every third Sunday of March and honors the town’s patron saint, St. Joseph.

The Soli-Soli grass grows abundantly along the banks of Lake Danao, the only freshwater lake in Cebu and the second cleanest lake in the country.

Camotes Island, one of the island groups of Cebu province, is a popular eco-tourism destination.Aside from the beaches, Lake Danao and the Bukilat Caves in Poro town are must visit areas in the Island.