DAVAO CITY (PIA)– The Department of Tourism (DOT) seeks to promote lesser known areas and help communities while also improving the positions of the competitive tourist destinations.
Guesting at the Kapihan sa Bagong Pilipinas, DOT XI Regional Director Tanya Rabat Tan said Secretary Christina Garcia-Frasco hopes to give a chance for the lesser known areas.
“We will be coming up with more to promote travel and help the local communities in the lesser known destinations,” she said.
Rabat-Tan had no particular province in mind to specifically promote but said that one of the priorities of DOT XI is to work with local government units (LGUs) to develop more community-based tourism areas to spread out tourist visits.
She cited the Davao Adventure Challenge as one of the strategies of bringing visitors to lesser known destinations.
“We seek to position Davao Region as a premiere adventure destination. With this, we want to encourage travel throughout the whole region. Gusto natin ang lesser known destinations ma-promote and mabisitahan din,” she said.
Some 360 have already registered to do adventure activities in 15-DOT listed sites including the newly launched destination in Davao de Oro. Of the 360 registered, 64 have already undergone their preferred adventure challenges.
“Malaki ang potential for travel throughout (the region),” she said referring to the design of rolling out the Davao Adventure Challenge.
Meanwhile, DOT XI makes sure that visitors are safe through its partnership with the Philippine National Police (PNP) in deploying “tourist police” or the TOPCOP, she said, referring to the Tourist-Oriented Police for Community Order and Protection.
Under this program, DOT trains police personnel on tourism awareness and other tourism-related concerns involving the police. “
“Nagde-deploy naman sila ng tourist police who can assist our tourists,” Rabat-Tan said.
On the other hand, Rabat-Tan said DOT also seeks to improve the connectivity of tourist destinations in terms of route, and flights both domestic and international.
Digital connectivity is also another aspect that DOT is working on in partnership with the Department of Information Communication and Information Technology (DICT), she said “to improve every aspect needed to have a conducive place being a competitive destination.” (JMDA)
