To welcome the New Year,
Angara pushes for stronger
local tourism promotion

According to reports, tourism will be the world's largest industry with 700 million tourists per year, collectively spending hundreds of billions of dollars. The Philippine share of tourists however lags behind in comparison to other Asian countries, receiving only 2 million tourists a year. This is however made up for by the domestic tourism industry.

With this, Senator Edgardo J. Angara is pushing for a stronger local tourism. In the Senate budget presentation of the Department of Toursim, the Senator called for the disaggregation of the P96.452 million allocations for domestic promotion.

"There are so many items under the domestic tourism promotion budget and some of them are overlapping in thrusts. We need to rationalize these different projects to redirect our focus," said the Senator.

Prior to the amendments on the budget, there were six items under domestic tourism promotion: Consumer promotions, Promotion of special events, Festival promotion, Promotion of travel shows, Biyahe Na! campaign, and Regional domestic promotions.

With the changes submitted, the items within the budget are cut down into three-Special Promotional Projects which covers special events and festival promotions; Regional Offices Promotional Activities; and Biyahe Na! Domestic Promotion for travel shows and Biyahe Na! campaigns.

"This rationalization of projects will allow us to focus our strategy in promoting local tourism," Angara pointed out. To date, Philippine domestic tourism industry is pegged at 8 to 10 million tourists every year.

"Other than financial gains, tourism is the only industry that can use our assets-culture, history and natural environment-in a sustainable manner," said the Senator. With this, "our tourism policy must be anchored on the promotion of our historical and cultural heritage."