WITH the land holdings of the Benguet State University making a big part of La Trinidad Valley, the university is proposing for the creation of a strawberry hub.
Realizing the abundant experience of the most popular attraction in Benguet, BSU Professor Maria Luz Fang-asan, director for planning and development said the feature of the future hub will have strawberry picking, strawberry tasting of all strawberry products, and memorabilia shop rolled into one.
During the second tourism conference, Fang-asan presented activities related to strawberry, the one town, one product of the municipality. The hub is set to give both domestic and foreign tourists to experience the most popular attraction of the farm.
The consolidated plan which started in 2014, still seeks the support of some agencies.
Prior to the plan, it was observed during holidays the number of visitors and vehicles increase and congest the strawberry farm. The plan considers and look more into the convenience of the visitors as well as the members of the community.
With traffic congestion seen as one of the problems, redirecting alternative route for vehicles’ entrance and exit are seen as one solution.
Improvement of toilets at the area will also be considered.
Meanwhile, Department of Tourism-Cordillera regional director Marie Venus Tan in her message as read by DOT-CAR senior tourism operations officer Mary Balagot said they are focusing on their collaborations for the strawberry farm.
"As donated by Max's group, Inc.- the biggest restaurant chain in the country, the master development plan will serve as blueprint towards the full development of the strawberry farms, where tourists can have complete experiential learning from the production to processing of strawberry products," Balagot said.
The La Trinidad Strawberry farm, for this year has welcomed 538,346 tourist.
Councilor Guiler Galwan, who chairs the committee on tourism said they are on the process of finishing the tourism code of the municipality and will come up with tourism safety and security ordinance, include and recognize most tourism oriented barangays who make their part to improve tourism in the valley.