Sinulog festival to boost tourist influx this month

CEBU, Philippines - Overseas and local tourists are expected to surge during the annual Sinulog Festival, which will simultaneously happen with Pope Francis’ visit in the Philippines.

Despite other circumstances, the Department of Tourism still expects visitor arrivals from other nations and regions in the country to surge this month to celebrate the festival.

DOT-7 Director Rowena Montecillo said tourism businesses always expects the influx of tourists in January and to get a boost from increased spending of visitors during their stay in Cebu.

She noted the hotel occupancy during the festival period usually averages at 97 percent, an increase from 67 to 68 percent normally recorded a week before the Sinulog weekend. 

“Usually in Cebu City, most of the accommodation establishments especially the big ones – including also the pension houses -- during the Sinulog week are fully booked,” she told The FREEMAN in an interview. The presence of pension houses has added to the current accommodation capacity.

The tourism sector has been one of Cebu’s economic growth drivers and has been boosted by various festivals like the Sinulog. And during this festive event, businesses cannot just let to lose out on tourism dollars.

The Hotels, Resorts and Restaurants Association of Cebu, Montecillo said, has been cooperative amid the always busy month of January for Cebu tourism.

'Maintain good service'

 “After Christmas, everyone is in Sinulog mood already. Everybody will be busy until the end of the month,” the tourism official said, however, pointing out the challenge for local companies is really to maintain the standards of service expected by travelers amid the peak season.

She said: “We hope to be very competitive and even if we are in a peak season, we should be able to maintain our good service we've been known for.”

But could Cebu be doing more to attract more visitors?

According to Montecillo, this is when the importance of well-trained company front-liners (customer service workers) comes in. They are the ones who directly communicate with tourists and can give an expression of good service, she said. 

Tourism-related enterprises should also become more marketing-oriented to lure more visits from local and overseas citizens.

Spending

As more tourists flock into the province, this follows the spending for food, transportation, accommodation, souvenir items and services, thus helping the local economy.

The director said Japanese, Americans, Russians and Koreans are the long-stay and big spender tourists.

The tourism agency wants to attract more non-traditional tourists such as Europeans and Russians and other markets.

“We are not closing our doors because we don’t want to be concentrating our markets The more countries of origin, the better for us,” the official added.

Koreans, Japanese, Americans and Chinese still top the number of overseas tourists.

Government data showed domestic and foreign arrivals in Cebu during the 2014 January-September period reached 1,134,234 and 948,812, respectively.

The tourism agency has targeted more than three million local and foreign tourists to visit Cebu this year.  (FREEMAN)