LGUs asked to help eradicate 'tulis guides'

CEBU, Philippines - The Department of Tourism (DOT) is appealing to all Local Government Units (LGUs) to create an ordinance for the protection of legal tour guides and eradicate the “hupo-hupo” or unlicensed tour guides.

DOT Region VII will also be strictly requiring all tour guides to have a DOT national accreditation ID before performing their tasks.

DOT will also be giving more incentives to the legal and DOT-accredited tour guides.

Rowena Montecillo, DOT-7 regional director, said they are appealing to the LGUs because of the growing number of illegal tour guides because they don’t have any hold on “hupo-hupo” tour guides.

Cinbeth Orellano, Cebu City Tourism Commission (CCTC) executive director, said their office is strictly following the requirements of DOT and that Cebu City already has an ordinance against illegal tour guides.

“We are so strict when it comes to tour guides here in the city as we really require them to wear the locally-accredited IDs. It’s not only Cebu City which is involved in Cebu’s tourism, we also have Mandaue City and Lapu-lapu City and other cities. I suggest to DOT, nga naa tay centralized nga ordinance to eradicate those illegal tour guides,” said Orellano.

With the implementation of the national accreditation IDs, she is encouraging all the locally-licensed tour guides to upgrade their IDs to get the DOT-accredited national IDs.

Montecillo expressed confidence that this new requirement would create a brighter and nicer image on the legal tour guides.

“Because of these hupo-hupo tour guides or tulis guides (illegal or unlicensed guides), the image of our legal tour guides were also affected, that’s why we’re now strict on imposing the national accreditation IDs for our tour guides,” she said.

To further encourage the accredited tour guides, DOT will give them incentives like closer access to the tourists with the pay complementing the number of tourists that they will be handling.

DOT-7 also conducts a five-day upgrading seminar to close to 200 tour guides in order to update them on the new trends and information issues of tourism.

Al Cuizon, National Federation of Tour Guides (NFTG) president, on the other hand, said that all tour guides should be members of DOT-accredited organizations like the Cebu Association of Tour Guides (CATG) in order to establish standards.

Judalyn Taghoy, NFTG vice president and the newly-elected president of CATG, said, “I am always in support of DOT’s thrust and programs of the government that’s why we will also strictly implement this in order to stop the growing population of illegal tour guides.” (FREEMAN)