The Ambaguio town, named after a mossy grass called ‘Ambagew’, is a 5th-class municipality of Nueva Vizcaya, the gateway to the Cagayan Valley Region. 

 It is one of the remote municipalities of the province but is now embarking on a first-world adventure sport called 'paragliding'.

The upland town’s natural airflow and environment have been hailed by foreign paragliding enthusiasts as a world-class adventure.

Ambaguio’s growing paragliding adventure prompted local officials and paragliding experts to join the 2024 First Tourism Champions Challenge conducted by the Department of Tourism (DOT) in partnership with the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority.

Luckily, Ambaguio won as champion in Luzon with their Skyport project proposal bagging the P20 million prize from the DOT with an additional P5 million from President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.

Ambaguio tourism officer Nuepe Manuel, Jr. said the Skyport project, which will be established in Barangay Naduntog, aims to transform the upland town as the paragliding capital of the country.

“We thank the DOT and TIEZA for this opportunity to properly institutionalize and operationalize the paragliding adventure in our municipality. We have challenges but we are committed to advancing the paragliding industry in our town,” he said.

The exponential growth in the tourist arrivals in Ambaguio took off in 2019, the start of the paragliding adventure, then slightly slowed down in 2020 due to the pandemic. It recovered and registered an annual increase in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

“In 2018, we have recorded 5,000 test flights alone with various paragliding enthusiasts,” Manuel said.

With the new and unique tourism activity, the local government was able to develop and train 12 Indigenous Peoples as paragliding pilots of whom four are already international athletes in the said air sport. 

The town’s officials are now working on the flight site development and the establishment of a paragliding tourism hub.

Manuel said the architectural and engineering designs are now being finalized for submission before the construction stage of the project.

“With the Skyport project, we expect the creation of tourism-related job opportunities for our villagers, promotion of our local products, and the other eco-tourism attractions in our municipality,” he said.

Marichelle Costales, provincial tourism officer, said Ambaguio’s Skyport project emerged to be the champion in Luzon out of the 98 proposals submitted to DOT for the competition.

She said the paragliding adventure in Ambaguio, which started before the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the tourist arrivals in Nueva Vizcaya.

Movie actor and paragliding enthusiast Ian Veneracion has been regularly visiting the province for its paragliding adventure and helped in promoting the industry as a world-class experience along with the Nueva Vizcaya Paragliding Team, and the LGU, among others.

“Right now, there are many trained paragliding operators and pilots in Ambaguio and we are optimistic that the paragliding adventure will be sustained for the better expectations of our various stakeholders,” she said.

With this, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan hailed Ambaguio for winning the Tourism Champions Challenge and expressed its strong support for their Skyport  project. (OTB/BME/PIA NVizcaya)