Thursday, January 11, 2007 CCCI reviews tourism plans, ‘difficult’ targets
THE Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) is rethinking the way it will move forward with the Cebu Plus, the tourism roadmap it launched in 2005 with the aim of bringing five million tourists to Cebu and its neighboring islands by 2010.
“When we evaluated it after a year, we found that some of the targets are not attainable, and some will have to be coordinated with some agencies, so it can’t be done by CCCI (alone),” said Dr. Mila Espina, chairperson of the tourism committee of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry of which Cebu Plus is a special project.
“But we’re still targeting the five million tourists in 2010,” she told Sun.Star Cebu last Monday.
Espina said Cebu Plus would remain a conceptual framework, but it would now be more of “a collation of what others are planning to do and what we (CCCI) could do.”
Focus
From hereon, the CCCI will just focus on the more short range and attainable aspects of the Cebu Plus.
For instance, the CCCI is helping in the efforts to instill the culture of tourism in Cebuanos and in the training of drivers. It is also supporting the Suroy-Suroy sa Sugbo, a program to showcase the attractions of the various towns in Cebu.
Cebu Plus is a tourism roadmap launched by the Cebu Tourism Core Group of the CCCI in June 2005. It aims to get and disperse five million tourists into 15 tourist clusters that are just a few hours’ travel from Cebu City annually by 2010. Of the five million tourists, 3.5 million would be foreign tourists.
These tourism clusters are Cebu/Mactan, Southeast Cebu (Carcar to Oslob/Mantalongon), Southwest Cebu (Badian/Pescador/Moalboal), North Cebu (Bogo, San Remegio, Bantayan, Malapascua), Northeast Cebu (Danao, Carmen, Camotes), Bohol, Dumaguete/Siquijor, Boracay, Bacolod/Iloilo, Palawan, Tacloban/Guiuan, Surigao/Siargao, Zamboanga/Iligan/Dipolog, Camiguin/Cagayan de Oro, and Legaspi/Sorsogon.
The roadmap is anchored on the McKinsey Report’s eight critical factors for tourism product development: air access, accommodations, security, environment, infrastructure, local access, tourism clusters and attractions.
Espina said the problem of attaining its targets became clear when topics like flyovers and boardwalks were raised. These are projects that the CCCI cannot decide and act on by itself.
Link
She said the CCCI will now serve more as a link to the different stakeholders concerned because it also does not want to duplicate or interfere with the efforts of other parties like the Department of Tourism and the city’s other promotion agencies.
When it comes to the problem of the perceived room shortage in Cebu, for instance, Espina said the CCCI will act as a link, referring the problem to the Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Association of Cebu but also pinpointing what CCCI can do.
To help promote Cebu, the CCCI has chosen “Cebu, Let’s Go” as the theme for this year’s Cebu Business Month, its annual trade and investment festival.
Roadshows
“We will have several roadshows in Asia” to promote this, she said. The roadshows will have the effect of promoting not just the CBM but Cebu as well.
The roadshows are targeted for March and April, or after the February launch of the CBM in Manila. The Cebu launch of the CBM 2007 will happen a week before the Manila launch.
As in the 2006 CBM, this year’s festival will support three major sectors: tourism, information and communication technology, and small and medium enterprises.
For tourism, this year’s tourism congress may be participated in by industry players from Singapore and China.
The CBM is so called because it used to be a month-long event traditionally held in June. But in recent years, the CCCI has expanded the scope of its activities so that some of its preparatory events already begin before June. (CTL)
