TPB upbeat on Mindanao, steps up regional campaign
The Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) is upbeat on Mindanao increasing its tourism arrivals and hitting its target of 12.6 million visitors for the year 2015 and 13.9 million in 2016 as envisioned in the National Tourism Development Plan.
TPB chief operating officer Domingo Ramon C. Enerio III said the agency’s optimism was based on the continued rise in Mindanao’s number of visitor arrivals, particularly domestic tourists, in various regions of the South.
“Region 10 (Northern Mindanao), 11 (Davao Region), and 12 (Soccsksargen) alone have registered significant and consistent increases in visitor volume,” Enerio pointed out.
Reports from the regions indicate visitor volume in Northern Mindanao leaping by 96 percent in the second quarter of 2014, and the Davao Region by 38 percent to 2.52 million in 2014 from 1.83 million in 2013 and 16 percent over the 1.57 million in 2012.
Similarly, Region 12 Director Nelly Nita N. Dillera reported a 294-percent volume increase in daytime tourists from 471,980 in 2013 to 1,858,809 in 2014, with the number of overnight stay also rising by 108 percent from 345,328 in 2013 to 717,596 in 2014.
Dillera said foreign arrivals also posted a triple-digit surge at 122 percent from 14,375 in 2013 to 31,861 in 2014.
“In fact, we can expect a continued uptrend across the board for the rest of Mindanao as the TPB intensifies its region-focused marketing campaign,” Enerio stressed.
The TPB, according to Enerio, is regionalizing its thrust in product development and promotional efforts in adhering to the Aquino administration’s pursuit of inclusive growth.
“That (inclusive growth) means that we have to ensure that everybody, especially the poor, gets included in bearing and reaping the fruits of tourism development. Thus, the TPB is striving to ‘communitize’ or make our communities take the forefront in tourism development and promotions through a strategic region-centered approach that focuses most of our resources on the regions,” Enerio explained.
Part of that program is the TPB’s participation in a forthcoming international tourism expo, where Mindanao’s regions will showcase their tourism destinations, products, services and other attractions.
Slated at the SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex, from July 3 to 5, the Travel Madness Expo will have a big 36-sq.m. booth for the regional exhibits of the entire South.
“This Mindanao showcase will also highlight the many sectoral partnerships that the TPB has been developing to bring about a widely participatory development of tourism in both the urban centers and the coun- tryside, involving both crosscultural and geographic linkages that offer a much broader and deeper tourism experience as a marketing come-on,” Enerio further explained.
Known as the country’s second-biggest island, Mindanao is home to about a quarter of the national population with mostly literate and English-speaking labor force, generally located outside the typhoon belt, endowed with magnificent natural landscape, and supplies 40 percent of the country’s food requirements.
“Indeed, it’s more fun in Mindanao,” Enerio stressed.