DOT-7 chief cites need for more resort rooms

Aside from its primary function to facilitate tourism activities and attract visitors from all over the world to the Philippines, the Department of Tourism (DOT) has extended and intensified its services to invite prospective investors for tourism especially in the country's most popular destinations like Cebu and Bohol.

DOT-7 regional director Patria Aurora Roa said, marketing Cebu as a tourism destination will not be effective anymore, unless investors will decide to build more hotels and resorts to cope with the growing interest of visitors to come to Cebu or Bohol.

"We can not accommodate more arrivals, if we don't build more hotel/resort facilities," said Roa. She added that massive marketing campaign for Cebu or Bohol should be complemented with facilities that could accommodate visitors.

"We have gone out of our way, like providing helicopter ride for interested investors to put up hotel or resort facilities in Cebu, and Bohol," Roa said.

She said that DOT-7 with the support of its Cebuano chief Joseph "Ace" Durano has intensified its service to drum up investors' interest to build more accommodation facilities at least in the two provinces (Cebu, and Bohol).

According to Roa, DOT-7 has also prepared investment portfolios for Central Visayas region, to market the area as fertile investment hub for tourism related businesses.

So far, Roa said DOT has already escorted several foreign interested investors to look for good sites for investment in Cebu and Bohol and even as far as Palawan.

"We have to complement the efforts of the investment promotions centers in each province in order to set up good tourism facilities, resolving the over-due problem of room shortage especially in Cebu," Roa stressed.

She added that a few Singaporean, Korean companies have already expressed interest for resort or hotel investments in Cebu and Bohol.

DOT has already encouraged local investors to take advantage of the "tourism boom" in Cebu to pour in investments in resorts or hotels, while convincing existing resort operators to expand their facilities.

Roa clarified that Cebu has a shortage of resort rooms, but not much in the business hotel rooms.

"We need more resorts. We are losing thousands of Japanese tourists, because we can not accommodate them anymore," she said.

According to an earlier report, the Philippines has lost about 500,000 potential foreign tourists last year, mostly Japanese, because of the lack of room accommodation.

Mactan Island, which is Cebu's major resort hub, has a good potential to attract more resort investors, but some problems must be resolved first, especially in the Local Government Unit (LGU) level.

Local businessman Efrain T. Pelaez Jr., earlier said that if it were not for the very difficult business environment in Mactan, a lot of businesses or new developments may have been built in the last few years.