DAVAO City Councilor Myrna Dalodo-Ortiz is seeking to launch the month-long Kadayawan Festival celebration two months before the festival's opening.
Dalodo-Ortiz said Wednesday, August 28, that while organizers deemed this year's Kadayawan celebration "a successful one" because of the influx of tourists since it was officially opened on August 2, the councilor said many were not aware that it was celebrated month-long.
The councilor, who chairs the committee on tourism, said the issue was among those discussed during the post-Kadayawan evaluation on Tuesday, August 27.
She said the media launch, which was held last July, was not enough for the massive information dissemination.
"We aim na gawing maaga ang media launch. Medyo kulang ang information dissemination kasi hindi lahat ng tao are aware na month-long celebration siya, both local and foreign (We aim to conduct the media launch earlier because the information dissemination was not fully done due to lack of time, which resulted to some local and foreign tourist not being aware that the celebration was a whole-month affair.) They were not able to prepare," Dalodo-Ortiz said.
She added that some were also not aware that the Indak-Indak sa Kadayawan street dancing competition and the Pamulak sa Kadayawan floral float competition were already held on a separate weekend.
She also said that among her proposals is to invite media from Manila for the event to be promoted further.
She said there will still be another post-Kadayawan evaluation in the coming days.
As to the number of total tourist arrivals, she said the City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO) will be able to release the data by September as the Kadayawan celebration will cap off on August 31.
"With the month-long celebration of the Kadayawan, it gave more time to our tourist. Unlike in the previous years, wherein the most is two weeks. They have time to plan their visit here in Davao," Dalodo-Ortiz said.
On Tuesday, August 27, the councilor passed a resolution during the regular session congratulating the City Government for the successful staging of the Kadayawan festival.