THERE is no denying that Davao City’s tourism climate is upbeat.
With this current situation comes a surge of tourists coming to the city whether for business or leisure activities. And with more tourists visiting the city means a need for accommodation rooms to cater this increase of demand.
In a report presented by Zuhaira Abas-Diamla, Department of Tourism-Davao officer-in-charge, she said tourist arrivals in Davao Region reached a total of 1,662,192 tourists for the first half of 2018, a 12 percent growth from the previous year’s 1,485,603 tourist arrival for the same period.
The increase can be attributed to more direct international flights launched in Davao City – Cathay Dragon’s Davao- Hong Kong and Xiamen Airlines’ Quanzhou-Davao flight.
Davao City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO) head Generose Tecson said in a recent interview that there is a need for more hotels and convention hotels in the city to accommodate a projected increase in tourist arrivals and prospective investors.
“We hope that there would be more entries also of big hotels, especially, big name-brand hotels. We still lack accommodation facilities despite the opening of big brands in the city,” Tecson said in an interview.
At present, the city has less than 9,000 accommodation rooms. Of the figure, only 3,187 rooms are accredited by DOT in 2017 based on a report submitted by DOT 11 Standards and Accreditation Division on September 25, 2018.
To augment the city’s accommodation capacity, a couple of local and international hotel brands are set to open starting next year.
These are dusitD2 Hotel; Santos Land Development Corporation’s (SLDC) Obsidian Suites Hotel; Acacia Hotel; and Cebu Landmaster’s Citadines Paragon Davao, which will open 120, 144, 260, and 263 rooms, respectively.
The city clearly needs more hotel and accommodation rooms to meet the increasing demand of tourists. But as hotels are expected to open in the coming years, may the tourism department do its job of ensuring these rooms also meet the standards of the industry. (ASP)