Sun.Star Economic Forum

GOVERNMENT should start to expand the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) now if it wants to attract more tourists to Cebu, Tourism Secretary Ace Durano said. (more)

A RECORD three million foreign tourists are projected to visit the Philippines this year, if the arrivals trend from January to June continues, making 2007 a potentially “monumental year,” Tourism Secretary Ace Durano said yesterday. (more)

CEBU CITY (Updated 5:04 p.m.) — In response to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s target of making Central Philippines as a tourism mega-region, the Tourism department drafted a program for Cebu to garner one million foreign visitors in 2012. (more)

SABAH’S top tourist market is its domestic visitors unlike in other countries like the Philippines where foreign visitors are the top travelers.

Data from Tourism Malaysia presented by Datuk Karim Bujang, assistant minister of Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment, during Thursday’s Sun.Star Economic Forum 2007, showed that domestic visitors continued to be its top traveler from 2004 to early 2007.

Bujang said in 2006, Sabah’s visitor arrivals reached the two million mark – this represents a staggering increase of 460 percent from 373,180 arrivals in 1997. Read the rest of this entry »

Click here to download presentation – Durano report

TOURISM Secretary Joseph “Ace” Durano presented Thursday the tourism department’s actionable medium-term vision for Cebu — one million tourists in 2012.

Durano, speaking before the Sun.Star Economic Forum 2007 at the Marco Polo Hotel, said the vision is actionable and doable.

Tourism figures showed that the growth of Cebu’s tourism industry has been consistently impressive, he said. It has grown an average of 14.33 percent over the last three years. Read the rest of this entry »

Tourists to Cebu like the hospitality of the local people and the scenery but are turned off by its bad roads and dirty environment.

Tourism Secretary Joseph Durano, speaker at the Sun.Star Economic Forum at the Marco Polo Hotel, said a survey among tourists showed that Cebu is a favorite destination because of the people’s “warm hospitality,” the beautiful scenery and the inexpensive products.

But, he said, what the tourists disliked about Cebu were its bad weather, bad roads, dirty environment and heavy traffic in the city.

Nevertheless, Durano foresees a US$12-billion tourist investment for 2012. (Sunnex)

Cebu was the number one destination for foreign tourists for the most part of 2006, an official of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said in the Sun.Star Economic Forum 2007 Thursday.

Madeleine Escandor, senior executive of the Neda in Central Visayas, said Cebu was the number one destination from January to September 2006, gaining a 34.4 percentage share of the market.

Escandor spoke in the annual forum on economic issues and business opportunities in Cebu. Forum theme this year is “Cebu Tourism: Moving Forward.” (Sunnex)