KAGAYANon.net, Cagayan de Oro City Forum

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Gov’t, business drafting strategy to push ecology tourism in EAGA

CAGAYAN DE ORO — The government and the business sector are developing strategies to promote community-based tourism in the East ASEAN Growth Area (EAGA), which comprises Brunei, as well as parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Last Tuesday, more than a hundred participants gathered here to discuss initiatives on community-based ecological tourism. The event, dubbed "BIMP-EAGA Community-Based Eco Tourism Forum," was spearheaded by the Department of Tourism and industry leaders.

Rolando A. Canizal, director for Tourism Development Planning, said the forum aimed to help promote various locations in the Philippines through community-based tourism.

"As of July, our tourism arrivals reached 1.9 million and we are targeting 3.3 million at the end of the year," Mr. Canizal said, noting that community-based tourism could boost the industry further and provide opportunities to host towns and provinces.

Mary Jean T. Roxas, project manager for German Technical Cooperation agency GTZ, said her group is working to help this thrust.

Parts of central Philippines, communities in Camiguin in Northern Mindanao, and locations near Dapitan City in Zamboanga Peninsula are some of the areas to be included in this thrust.

For his part, Tourism Undersecretary Oscar P. Palabyab explained that "if you develop these community-based projects, you give livelihood [to the host communities]. It is the only activity that brings money to the hinterlands. "

Mr. Palabyab said conflicts in parts of Central Mindanao should not deter this campaign. "We have succeeded in some areas. Northern Mindanao is successful in tourism. What I’m trying to say is that it [security] does not become a big problem anymore unlike five years ago." — PLPC, Business World