A TEAM of consultants consisting of tourism planners and heritage specialists are in Davao City to craft a master plan creating a tourism traffic for Mintal village.
Pre-war Mintal was considered as Davao City's Little Tokyo, where the Japanese have settled and built infrastructures like hospital, schools, and cemetery.
Relics from the Japanese have been found in the village as early as the 1900s.
The project has a P120-million budget from the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Teaza), an attached agency of the Department of Tourism.
Representatives of the consultancy company Berkman International Inc. have been visiting the village of Mintal’s heritage, historical, cultural and man-made attractions and possible destinations.
"There is a need to have a first-hand knowledge of the typical Mintal tourism experience," City Tourism Chief Regina Rosa Tecson said.
To gather some more information about Mintal, the team of planners on Tuesday initiated a public consultative meeting and workshop.
The activity aimed to collect stories about the village from families who lived in the area before, during, and after the Japanese occupation.
The objective was to trace back history, and identify landmarks that have heritage importance.
Village Captain Ramon Bargamento II has proposed the “revival and rehabilitation of his village’s rich historical resources being declared as Japanese Heritage Area in 2009.”
“It started with 20 million, now it has ballooned to 120 million,” Bargamento said. (PR)