WITH the tourist arrival in Baguio City expecting to reach 1.4 million starting September until the end of the year, the Department of Tourism in the Cordillera is now preparing for a power branding of the municipalities within the LISTT area.
Tourism Regional Director Venus Tan pointed out the need to conduct a power branding of La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba and Tublay in terms of its tourism potentials to help declog the number of tourists frequenting the Summer Capital.
"With the recorded arrivals of tourists in the city, there is a need to redefine the tourism potentials of the municipalities surrounding the city through branding of their attractions which would appeal to the tourists," said Tan.
The power branding method is a result of the transportation connectivity access of the city through the NLEX-SCTEX-TPLEX route which have shortened the travel time from the National Capitol Region to the city of Baguio to three and a half hour.
"This method is considered to be part of the preparation of the city when the Rosario to San Juan, La Union express way is finished, which would lessen the travel time going up to Baguio to 3 hours," Tan explained.
At present, the expressway coming from NLEX extends to the municipality of Binalonan in Pangasinan through the TPLEX, while the Binalonan to Rosario stretch is expected to be open to traffic early next year.
"Once traffic would be open to the motoring public until Rosario in La Union province, the easier access and connectivity will give way to the increase in the arrival of tourists in the city. It is expected that with the power branding of the municipalities, the decongestion of traffic in the city may be addressed," the tourism official added.
Part of the tourism foresight for 2018 is awareness of other municipalities’ tourism potentials which will give way for the tourism department to capacitate the communities within the municipalities particularly in their One Town One Products, arts and crafts.