Tourism services to be improved during ML

THE Department of Tourism (DOT) in Davao Region is currently making use of the slight interference in tourism arrivals in Davao Region as an opportunity to improve the services sector in preparation for the arrival of more tourists and businessmen in the region once again.

“We conducted training programs to help our frontliners develop their tourism services… For our establishments here, we held Business Promotions after Crisis Seminars. We also had an Events Management Seminar for the local government unit of Davao City and Davao Oriental. We also had housekeeping procedure seminars for Davao del Norte,” Roberto Alabado III, DOT 11 regional director, said.

He also said they had conducted a specific training requested by their clients which trained the waiters and other restaurant staff to take a good picture.

“We showed them how to compose and how to arrange the setting when taking the picture as well as the tips on how to have the perfect shots for our visitors. We want to show that when our visitors come here in Davao City, even with the simple request of taking pictures, our waiters know how to,” he said.

He added their trainings and seminars conducted in partnership with different hotels and restaurants in the region were participated by a total of 300 individuals.

Alabado said the cancellations and rescheduling of events occurred immediately within the first few weeks that Martial Law was declared in Mindanao but later on already started recovering with more events pushing through.

“It’s an initial reaction of tourists and investors – to wait and see. Now, they saw that there is particularly no problem. So they have started to reschedule those that were originally cancelled. It’s a misnomer when you say cancelled, more like reschedule. We are hoping that with these developments, people are now seeing Martial Law here in Mindanao is different from what others think,” Alabado said.