Saturday, March 01, 2008 Talisay to strengthen programs to lure tourists
TALISAY City is stepping up efforts to promote tourism by opening up more sites for tourists to enjoy.
"We are promoting the Lagundi Reef near the Poblacion as an alternative diving site," said Vice Mayor Lani Abarquez last Tuesday. "We opened it to the public this year."
She also told tour operators and tour guides joining the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) 7 and Department of Tourism 7’s One Town, One Product (Otop) familiarization tour of southern Cebu that Talisay is expanding the museum that it has inside the Talisay Central School.
Among the items that Talisay has are vintage bombs and an ancient bell.
During World War 2, the returning American forces made their historic landing along Talisay’s beaches, starting Cebu’s liberation from Japanese occupation. Talisaynons commemorate this event every March 26.
Abarquez said the reef and the museum are among the attractions of Talisay, aside from its beaches and lechon (roasted pig), the product being promoted by Talisay under the Otop project.
Lodging
She assured the tour guides that any tourist wishing to stay overnight in the city can find comfortable lodgings in the city’s many small resorts.
The Otop is a priority project of the Arroyo administration to promote entrepreneurship and create jobs. Under the project, local chief executives of each city and municipality take the lead in identifying, developing and promoting a specific product or service in their respective areas, with the DTI providing support through training and the enabling of bench-marking visits.
Tuesday’s familiarization tour represented the efforts of the DTI 7 to link Otop to the tourism market so that Otop products may be made available to tourists. Bringing tourists to the towns to see how local products are made also satisfies the need of local tour operators to offer their clients more meaningful tours.
Central Visayas is the pilot area in the country for the linking of Otop to the tourism industry.
Rey Abrogueña, president of Talisay’s association of 24 lechon makers, said roasted pigs in Talisay can sell for anywhere from P2,800 to P6,000 each, depending on their size.
Since 2004, the association’s members have been showcasing their products in the Inasal Festival held on Oct. 15, the fiesta of Talisay.
Inasal center
Abrogueña, proprietor of Kay-Ken’s Special Native Lechon, said that on peak seasons, like Easter Sunday or the Christmas holidays starting from Dec. 15, his company alone could sell as many as 100 roasted pigs a day.
Jane Enrile, head of the licensing department of Talisay City, said there is a plan to build an Inasal and Pasalubong Center in Poblacion, Talisay where tourists and locals can go anytime to eat roasted pig and other delicacies.
But since the Talisay City Government still has to buy a lot for the center, as well as pass a resolution on the matter, she estimated that it may take about three years yet for the inasal center to be realized.
Aside from Talisay, the familiarization tour to the southern towns covered Carcar City and Argao and Minglanilla towns.
Commenting on the DTI-DOT Otop linkage, Anthony Anico, supervisor of Grand Holidays Travel and Tours Inc., said some visitors to Cebu already visit Talisay, but on a limited basis. They are usually those who go on educational tours.
Under the Lakbay-Aral program, barangay captains and officials from other provinces, for example, stop at the Talisay City Hall to make a courtesy call on the mayor, he said.
Students on tours to industrial companies like Cemex and Taiheiyo Cement Philippines Inc. in Naga City and San Fernando town also lunch on lechon in Talisay on the way back to Cebu City. CTL
