CIPC to take on additional task but wants more funds

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City government has given the Cebu Investments and Promotions Center (CIPC) an additional workload, this time not only to encourage investments to Cebu, but also to invite more tourists to the city.

CIPC managing director Joel Mari S. Yu said he recently had a talk with Cebu City mayor-elect Michael Rama about the matter, but this additional task is yet to be formally processed.

Yu said there is no problem in terms of promoting the city’s tourism industry, however, funding for this additional task would be an impediment as the agency has only been getting an annual budget of P3 million from the city’s coffers since 1997.

He added that in fact due to financial constraints, CIPC had to cut their trips in participating in international promotion programs and focused on serving the visiting investors in Cebu instead.

Yu said Rama wants CIPC to help the City Tourism Council in creating a sustainable tourism plan, strategies and actual tourism promotion.

The City Tourism Council will focus on tourism events, while CIPC will handle the development of programs as well as promotional campaigns all for the purpose of making Cebu City attractive to both local and foreign tourists.

Yu, however said, CIPC must be allocated an additional funding of another P3 million per year to handle this additional workload.

“We need at least P6 million annual budget for us to do these promotional works in both investments and tourism,” Yu said in an interview.

Meantime, with the limited budget, CIPC is doing promotional works for the City’s investment zone, the South Road Properties (SRP).

Even before Rama announced this plan to involve CIPC in the tourism promotion for Cebu, Yu said the agency had been considering to include tourism in their promotional portfolio, starting with making Cebu as “Second Home Destination.”

Last year, Yu announced that CIPC will invite stakeholders in the real estate sector, tourism sector to formulate a roadmap to position Cebu as an international “Second Home Destination” in the world.

Yu said once this additional task will be formalized, CIPC will start by talking with the tourism stakeholders and the LGU executives.

    Yu mentioned the need for Cebu to “clean-up”. “If we want people to come, Cebu should portray its full beauty.”

Also, one of the primary problems to be addressed is the safety issues of the tourists. “Visitors don’t want to be distracted by beggars, and others, while they are on vacation.”

 Earlier, Cebu Business Club (CBC) president Dondi Joseph expressed disappointment of Cebu’s “deteriorating beauty” in attracting tourists.

Joseph said that the tourism potential of Cebu is so huge, but it has to have a unified tourism program that will promote the entire province with the strong and unified support from the cities and municipalities, regardless of their leaders’ political color.

The pollution in Cebu, he said is already “suffocating” and poverty is obvious. “Tourists don’t like to see poverty [in the frontline]. They are on vacation-- they don’t want to be reminded by realities.”