Cebu’s tourism groups meets DOT Secretary Puyat

Finally after a long and heated battle Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as US Supreme Court justice, thus ending the court-like atmosphere for his personal investigation in the US Congress where the Democrats practically put in all witnesses to discredit Kavanaugh, almost accusing him of rape. This was how the Democrats played his commissioning deliberations, but in the end Kavanaugh became the newest justice of the US Supreme Court, thus bringingAmerica back to the times when Christianity was a revered religion and the liberals did not play an important role. Someday I predict that with Kavanaugh in the line-up the famous Roe vs. Wade will be reinvestigated and even overturned. God bless America!

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Last Saturday the Cebu media had a heyday with Department of Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat at the Waterfront Hotel where issues about tourism were discussed. Our media asked more questions about the fate of Boracay which reopens on October 26. But Puyat was proud to tell us that despite the closure of Boracay tourism arrivals to the Philippines experienced an increase. That alone tells you that Boracay may be famous but the other tourism destinations in the country are also experiencing remarkable growth!

After the press conference Puyat met with the Cebu tourism stakeholders, people who are in the travel industry or the hotel, resort, and transportation business. Truth to tell, I do not recall the tourism stakeholders meeting with the tourism secretary that happened 12 years ago. So Puyat talked about the need for sustainable tourism and also pointed out that she is not changing the tourism slogans because most of our rival nations did not change theirs. But in the Philippines we change those slogans whenever time we have a new DOT secretary. This is why she said that she has no new slogan to bring in.

Other speakers also said their piece side from the DOT secretary. Those who spoke where DOT Regional Director Shalimar Hofer Tamano; Kenneth Cobonpue, the only private sector head of the Regional Development Council Region-7; Glenn Soco, infrastructure chairman of the RDC; and Andrew Harrison, general manager of GMR-Megawide Consortium, whom many of us consider is Cebu’s secret tourism promoter. According to Harrison, we expect more flights from other countries to fly direct to Cebu. He added that New Zealand tourists might soon be flying to Cebu.

Other things discussed was Cebu’s being number 8 in Leisure and Travel’s “Best Islands in the World List” for 2018, Cebu’s being included in Conde Nast World’s Top Best Islands for 2017, and Cebu’s being the top tourism drawer in the Philippines…that with the new Terminal 2 now completely operational.

Call it unfortunate that Cebu’s tourism success also brought in the incompetence of our government. A case in point is the circumferential road in Mactan which was given by USAID. This road needs to be widened as soon as possible to double the width. With the Cebu-Cordova Expressway coming up in three years, the local governments of Cordova and Lapu-Lapu City must prepare to make traffic bearable.

Secretary Puyat also pointed out that by March 10 to 12 there will be the Routes Asia International Conference. Around 800 delegates will attend this forum, 100 airline representatives, 200 airport representatives, 30 tourism authorities, and 20 speakers will talk shop during these two days. Then on June 10 to 11, 2019 airline CEOs are invited to join the Cebu Center forAviation which will also be a huge international conference on aviation. It is just unfortunate that the quarrel between Mayor Tomas Osmeña and the SM Group has put on hold Cebu’s version of theARENAand SMX which would have been a great opportunity to showcase Cebu’s international status.

I told the group that the forum with Puyat and the Cebu Tourism Stakeholders was historic because I have broken Cebu’s tourism growth into two phases. The first was Ceboom where Cebu sold itself as an island in the Pacific, then when former governor Gwen Garcia established the Suroy-Suroy program that brought Ceboom to the entire Cebu Province. So if that meeting last Thursday would usher in a new infrastructure development for Cebu, then I call that the third phase of Cebu’s tourism growth. So let’s make it happen!