Stakeholder bats for rural tourism

From focusing mainly on the attractions in metropolitan Cebu and nearby, there are now efforts to broaden the tourism limelight to include the often-neglected tourism spots in both the northern and southern stretch of the province.

Turismo Rural Foundation (TRF), an organization spearheaded by industry player Almont Group and supported by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), is concentrating on developing the business and entrepreneurial potentials of the towns and its residents.

"The primary objectives of Turismo Rural are tourism training for all the key stakeholders in the community, education and employment, historical site preservation through synergies, mainstream promotion of partnered towns and communities and entrepreneurship through tourism," said Julie Alegrado-Vergara, one of the foundation's leaders and president and chief executive officer of tourism industry player Almont Holdings, Inc., the umbrella organization of Bluewater resorts Maribago Bluewater and Sumilon Island Bluewater in Cebu and Almont Hotel's Inland Resort and Almont Hotel in Butuan City.

The foundation produced a handbook on community-based tourism as its first project for the training of the stakeholders. For the education and employment part, the TRF is coordinating with Almont Holdings' Almont Training Foundation (ATF) and partnering the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) for the training of the underprivileged youth who wish to become part of the hospitality management industry.

In preserving the heritage monuments and landmarks of each town on the other hand, TRF has tapped Boysen paints and to create business opportunities, they are establishing a franchising-oriented accommodations project dubbed "Casa Rural."

"Current capacity limitations and increased arrivals open up opportunities for communities to get involved, offer alternative tourist destinations, and help further tourism growth in the Philippines," the foundation's community handbook stated.

Currently, the outskirts of the metropolitan Cebu lack tourism facilities such as lodging houses, specialty shops, dining facilities and services and the foundation aims to fill in the need with the cooperation of the locals.

Under the Casa Rural project, the foundation wants to give business opportunities to local families by converting their existing unoccupied vacation houses and/or ancestral homes into a standardized accommodation that will house the tourists, foreign or local, who are visiting a certain locality.

Employing a franchising concept, each Casa Rural will have to be standardized so that the services will be of the same level.

Alegrado-Vergara said they will provide trainings and accreditations to the homes that will qualify. As early as now, they already identified a certain ancestral house in Argao, a southern town of the province, to be converted into a Casa Rural. Also, the town will be the pilot area where community-based tourism will take off. "Argao is actively promoting their tourism potentials and we found them ready for this," she added.

Once everything will be in place, the foundation expects to provide job opportunities to the locals.

Governor Gwen Garcia who was present during the launch of TRF said that the idea of tourism is largely centered at the metropolitan Cebu before. "When I defined what tourism should be, quizzical eyebrows raised. I told them, there's so much more of Cebu to discover. We have beautiful towns, beautiful structures are scattered all around the province like the beautiful and breath-taking Kawasan Falls, the jewel island of Sumilon, our undiscovered hot springs, and rivers and most of all the incomparable warm Cebuano hospitality," she said.

"This falls exactly to the direction that we have taken," the governor said describing the efforts of the foundation. "This is Turismo Rural. Rural tourism. Now I say, sometimes, the right people come together at the right time for the right reasons. I see this now. This synchronicity and this can only mean good, beautiful, wonderful things for our beloved province," Garcia added.