Rama pushes for intensive promotion of BPO, tourism

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama has instructed the Cebu Investments and Promotions Center (CIPC) to focus on formulating extensive promotional programs to take advantage of the Business Process Outsourcing and Information Technology (BPO/IT) and tourism potential of the city.

In an interview with Rama, he said that he has allocated an additional budget to support CIPC to aid existing promotion programs of these two industries, as well as provide more effective promotional activities.

In an earlier interview with CIPC managing director Joel Mari S. Yu, he said that there is no problem in helping the promotion for BPO/IT and tourism for the city.

However, the agency is also needing help in terms of funding, as it is only getting P3 million a year from the City government’s coffer since 1997.

Because of the shortage of operational funds, Yu said CIPC had to cut their trips in participating international promotion events, and limited to only serving the visiting investors to Cebu.

Aside from intensifying its marketing programs to attract more BPO and IT investments to the City, Yu said Rama has also expanded the role of CIPC to help with the City Tourism Council, in creating sustainable tourism plan, strategies and actual tourism promotion.

One of the suggestions made by Yu to the City’s Tourism Council, through the leadership of councilor Margot Osmeña, is to create a series of “Pocket of Beauty” in Cebu to make lasting good impressions of tourists for Cebu City.

The City Tourism Council, will focused on tourism events, while CIPC will be tasked to create program, promotional campaigns to further make Cebu City attractive to both local and foreign tourists.

However, according to Yu, in order for CIPC to accommodate this additional work-load, CIPC should be given additional funding of at least P3 million per year more.

“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 earlier.

Rama, on the other hand, did not mention the exact figure of the additional budget given to CIPC, he only said that he has already addressed the issue of additional funding for promotions.

In the BPO/IT industry, Yu is confident that Cebu will be able to achieve its full potential, especially this year, as the City and the Province in general is now gaining international popularity following the announcement of Tholons declaring Cebu as an Emerged BPO Destination in the world.

Yu said that the entry and strong interest of “five-star” names in the world’s BPO and IT sectors to locate and expand in Cebu are just the initial result of Cebu’s successful bid becoming an “emerged” BPO investment destination in the world.

According to Yu, these are a combination of expansion and new entry of these IT and BPO giants in the world, and these are; JP Morgan and Chase, IBM, Dell, HP, Accenture and Floor Daniels.

Dell, HP and Floor Daniels are the new big names that will add to the BPO and IT locators in Cebu, strengthening the province’s capability to host “five-star” BPO and IT investors.

 At this point, Yu said Cebu is no longer suffering from building and office-space shortage, as developers have already built building facilities for BPO companies. Some are ready-to-occupy facilities, while some are still under construction.

CIPC has also pending program, to partner with the Department of Tourism (DOT), and real estate developers, to position Cebu as “second home destination” in the world, attracting foreigners to buy properties specifically condominiums here.