AN official of a national group of travel agencies urged tourism stakeholders to intensify promotions and packages to missionary routes to improve the country’s domestic tourism.

Angel Ramos Bognot, chairperson of the National Association of Independent Travel Agencies (Naitas)-Philippines Inc., said these are meant to excite and prompt locals to patronize “emerging” tourist destinations in the country.

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“With the birth of domestic carriers, we have to go with the trend of promoting these missionary routes, including its culture and festivals, to the domestic travelers,” Bognot told reporters.

He said it would take a maximum of three months for a package to be developed for these destinations.

Routes

Some of the missionary routes that airline companies are servicing include Bacolod, Caticlan and Siargao.

During a Naitas general membership meeting last week at Crown Regency Hotel and Towers in Cebu City, Bognot also
urged industry stakeholders to come up with creative and more value-for-money packages.

Naitas is planning on publishing the packages in a colorful travel guide for local visitors.

Product

Recalling the advice of Tourism Secretary Joseph “Ace” Durano for the group to actively engage in product development, Bognot asked travel agencies not to limit their participation in the travel industry to only documentation or ticket processing but also to offer packages for domestic and international markets.

Naitas, which has more than 1,000 members nationwide, was the organizer of the recently concluded Philippine International Tourism Fair.

The fair was aimed at reinforcing Central Visayas’s position as the country’s tourism super-region.