With 2.9M visits in ‘17, Lapu wins ‘battle’ for tourists

Official of the Department of Tourism 7 says at least one million tourists visited Lapu-Lapu City last year, majority of whom are Koreans, Chinese and Japanese.

At yesterday’s celebration and reenactment of the Kadaugan sa Mactan, Lapu-Lapu City celebrated yet another victory, this time in the field of tourism.

Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 Director Shahlimar Hofer Tamano said that Lapu-Lapu was the number one destination of international and local tourists in Central Visayas in 2017.

Tamano made the announcement during the reenactment at the Liberty Shrine in Barangay Mactan yesterday, which attracted around 5,000 spectators.

Based on their records, Tamano said that more than one million tourists visited Lapu-Lapu last year out of the 2.9 million tourists who visited Region 7.

“For context lang ha, it’s bigger than Boracay,” he said.

Most of the tourists, Tamano said, were Koreans (800,000) followed by Chinese (400,000) and Japanese (400,000).

According to Tamano, the number of Chinese tourist who visited Lapu-Lapu increased by 75 percent compared to the previous year.

This year, DOT 7 is expecting 7.5 million tourists to visit Visayas, especially with the opening of Mactan Cebu International Airport’s new terminal and the new international airport in Panglao, Bohol.

Mayor Paz Radaza welcomed the pronouncement made by Tamano.

She said that the City Government together with the police are doing its best to maintain the city’s cleanliness and its peace and order situation.

SUNSTAR FOTO / ALLAN CUIZON SPECTACLE. Ferdinand Magellan (right, played by Adrian Louis Alandy) and Datu Lapulapu (Derick Hubalde) battle on the shores of Mactan, though there’s no way of knowing if this is what it looked like 497 years ago.