Let’s get more tourists: Mayor

LAPU-LAPU City Mayor Paz Radaza urged her constituents to support the City’s efforts to attract more tourists.

During the city’s 51st charter anniversary celebration yesterday, Radaza said the City needs to work harder with the emergence of Camarines Sur as a top tourist destination.

“A recent news headline showed Camsur leading us in tourism arrival. We should embrace the report as a wake-up call,” she said in her speech at the Hoops Dome in Barangay Gun-ob.

Also yesterday, Mayor Radaza gave certificates of recognition to the City’s Task Force Kalikasan, Clean and Green program head Mario Imbong, three members of the Advance Karatedo Club and former Sangguniang Kabataan Federation president Reymar Dico, who passed the recent accountants’ licensure examinations.

In an interview with reporters, Radaza said the City Government is willing to cooperate with the province in promoting Cebu more aggressively.

Radaza, in her speech, said the City has shown the world its readiness for sports tourism when it hosted the Davis Cup, a prestigious international tennis competition, last year.

In August, the City will once again host an international sports event. The Ironman Triathlon will bring in 1,700 athletes, almost half of whom are foreigners, and 10,000 support group members.

“This is a first ever sporting event of this magnitude in our city,” said Radaza.

With an international airport, white sand beaches and five-star resorts, Cebu will still be able to “recapture the top spot,” Radaza said.

Records from the Department of Tourism show that more tourists visited Camarines Sur than Cebu in 2010.

Camarines Sur recorded 2.33 million tourists, most of them domestic visitors, while Cebu registered only 1.77 million tourists. Cebu, however, had more international visitors.

Radaza urged her constituents to keep the city clean and peaceful.

Tourism

“As we journey onwards, let us relentlessly focus on tourism as the catalyst of continuing progress and as the means in which our city can eradicate poverty,” she said.

Police Senior Insp. Rey Lyndon Lawas, in an interview with reporters, said the Task Force Kalikasan will continue and strengthen its efforts to protect Lapu-Lapu’s natural resources.

The City gave a certificate of recognition to Rafael Vidal, Rica Vidal and Allison Kyle Quiroga of the Lapu-Lapu Karate-Do Team.

Rafael won a silver medal at the National Age Group Karate-Do Championship in Manila last May 11 and 13. Rica was a semi-finalist in the same competition. Quiroga won the first Invitational National Karate-Do Championship, held last May in Mandaue City.