Cebu, Bohol pilot areas for $7.1M tourism grant

Cebu and Bohol are among the four pilot areas of a $7.1 million technical assistance grant on improving tourism competitiveness from the government of Canada.

Rowena Montecillo, Department of Tourism (DOT) regional director, said last Saturday Davao and Palawan were the two other pilot areas identified for the Asian Development Bank-Canadian International Development Agency (ADB-CIDA) grant.

“DOT (central office) has already signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with them last month for the assistance that is targeted to start implementing this year up to 2016,” said Montecillo.

The $7.1 million grant will include programs to boost the industry’s competitiveness which include skills training for the private sector, local government units, civil society and DOT agencies.

“Also included is the pilot implementation of the new system of accreditation and the development of standards for service quality,” said Montecillo.

Montecillo said with the MOA already signed by ADB-CIDA as the administering agency and tourism department, the guidelines were already being drafted for implementation within the year up to 2016.

“I’m glad that of the four pilot areas, two (Cebu and Bohol) are from Central Visayas. This will really help the industry in the region especially that we are among the most popular destinations in the country today,” said Montecillo.

When the evaluators visited the different areas for the project, Montecillo said that they saw the need to include the two provinces in the pilot areas because of its tourism potential.

Cebu and Bohol are considered key destinations in the country that should be looked into for more improvement as it is currently attracting more tourists.

“The same with Palawan for its underground river and Davao,” said Montecillo.

TAXI DRIVERS

According to Montecillo she would like to include trainings for the taxi drivers in the project because they had been identified as among the first people that tourists interact with upon

arrival.

“I think it is important that the taxi drivers get  training on how to handle tourists. How to be courteous and all that is necessary for the tourists to feel welcomed and safe,” said Montecillo.

Prudencio Gesta, past president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry during his term, implemented a program to train taxi drivers together with the Technical Education Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and the DOT.

“If that don’t get included under this project though, we can still push through together with Tesda and other organizations that have already committed to help,” said Montecillo.

The organizers hope to achieve positive developments from the project and duplicate some industry standards and successful practices in other destinations in the country later.

Hans Hauri, Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Association of Cebu president, said earlier that they recognized the need to have more competitive skilled manpower that would help define the country’s niche in tourism which would be its people especially when the Asean Community integration would happen in 2015.

“This comes at an opportune time when we need to scale up the development of tourism towards our bid of 10 million international visitor arrivals and 56.1 million domestic travellers by 2016,” said Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. in an earlier statement.

Jimenez said that the country should be ready to improve the tourism industry and enhance the quality of our services to ensure high visitor satisfaction levels which would trigger word-of-mouth marketing.