DAVAO City shows progress on its effort to brand itself as one of the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (Mice) destinations in the country, said City Tourism Operations Office.
On the sidelines of the Visit Davao Summer Festival (VDSF) 2018 official launching at Seda Abreeza Hotel Tuesday, April 10, City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO) head Generose Tecson said with the continued push and promotion of Davao City as a Mice destination, they have noticed national conferences and seminars that are being done in the city almost every month.
“Usually, they book their conferences before our festivals like Kadayawan or Araw ng Dabaw just so they can still enjoy the city after their seminars and conferences,” said Tecson.
Even on summer, when tourist arrivals are expected to be exploring the city for leisure purposes, Tecson said they are still a number of Mice events being booked in the city during this time of the year.
On April 25, one of the biggest Mice events this summer will be held at the SMX Convention Center, SM Lanang Premier and will be attended by at least 6,000 people from different parts of the country. This will be a national conference of Freemasonry in the Philippines.
“The happy thing about Davao City is that our MICE events are no longer seasonal. Every month, there are booked huge conventions. So now, we continue to address the challenge in accommodations with this. How are we going to increase the number of our accommodation facilities?,” said Tecson.
For the months of April to May, CTOO forecasts about 175,000 tourist arrivals. This will be on top of the 348,000 tourist arrivals recorded for the months of January to February this year only.
Tecson also shared that they are glad that Davao City serves as the gateway of Davao Region. As a result, tourists and participants of the VDSF 2018 are sure to drop by the city and spend time for other tourism activities on top of the other adventures and amenities they are to experience in the other provinces of the region.
Davao City positioning itself as a MICE destination is part of the collaboration with the other local government units (LGUs) in Davao Region, these municipalities and other cities to cater and conduct pre and post tours for the tourists and MICE participants.
“Tourism is not just about having people come here once but to entice them to come back again and again to see what else is being offered. We cannot do that for Davao City alone. We also need to help promote the other places in the region with attractions that cannot be found here in the city. It’s really a collaboration of all the government units and the private sectors,” said Tecson.