THE Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (DCCCII) is planning a Davao-Tokyo direct flight together with two Japanese tourism groups.
During the weekly Habi at Kape press conference on Wednesday, January 17, the newly elected DCCCII president Arturo Milan said they plan to attract more Japanese tourists to come to Davao City through a direct flight from Davao to Tokyo.
"The Japanese group really wanted, and I was saying [to them], that these flights should be targeted during the Kadayawan. There should be a big event that will encourage the Japanese to come. But before that, there should be a promotion that we will have to go to Japan to promote in the key cities," Milan said.
He added they plan to connect with the Davao Tourism Association (Data) and the Davao City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO) for this project.
"If we are targeting Japanese tourists, then we have to have a complete package, not only for Davao but probably also for Mati, Surigao, and the nearby component cities to make the tourism package to be more exciting and attractive to the Japanese," he said.
At present, there have yet to be a specific airline that will handle the flight but Milan assured this will come easily once the Davao-Japan traffic had been finalized and established between the two countries.
"We need to look at the market first, how many passengers we can generate initially. In fact, there was a suggestion that we start with a chartered flight then make it sustainable through promotion," he said.
Parties involved in the planning of the establishment of the said flight are two Davao-based business groups and two Japanese groups that came from the tourism sector. These same Japanese groups also plan to bring the Japanese Tourism Bureau in Davao City to be part of the discussions. Milan said this is Japan's biggest tourism bureau.
Milan also encouraged the Davao City Government to be more aggressive in terms of tourism-related promotion of Davao City in other countries.