It’s business as usual for Dos Palmas Resort

The Dos Palmas Resort in Palawan is starting to get visitors again although it has virtually stopped its marketing efforts until the hostage crisis is resolved.

Dos Palmas resident manager Lyba Godio said the Honda Bay resort has hosted a few guests since it quietly reopened two weeks ago and has booked a few local guests for the early part of this month.

"We have been getting phone inquiries about our rates. Of course, they also ask about security which we have more than adequately addressed," Godio said, refusing to give details. "Actually the callers themselves volunteer that Dos Palmas should be the safest resort in the country right now."

She said Dos Palmas has dropped its rates to P6,000 per person for three days and two nights, including three meals per day and free use of its shore and water facilities, except those for scuba diving.

But the resort is not advertising this "in deference to those who are still being held hostage," she said.

She admitted that the resort is incurring heavy losses because of the loans it has to pay and needs to earn badly to pay its 130 regular employees and maintain the place.

"But it is not proper for us to market Dos Palmas at this time. We don’t know how long we can keep this up but we just know it is the right thing to do," she said.

The resort has not retrenched any of its employees and has no plans to do so in the near future, she added.

On the hostage issue, she said the management is closely monitoring it and reaching out to those directly affected. "Aside from this and our continuing prayers, there is nothing else we could do since this is already a police-military operation."

She said the management has already taken every conceivable security measure and is now sprucing up the place, cleaning and repairing every little thing, "We are confident that things will get better soon. This is so beautiful a place to pass up."

Dos Palmas is also doing community work through a foundation it set up a year ago.

"We want our barangay and Palawan as a whole to realize that tourism is the answer to many of their daily needs," she said.

The community, she said, can protect the environment and natural resources of the province. The resorts in the area then create jobs and buy various products and services.

"If the residents realize that we both need each other, I think tourism will be an endless source of economic potential. And this can be replicated throughout the country," she said.

Eventually, she said, an alert citizenry can help in security and, as tourism seeps down and kicks off prosperity, the countryside would become more peaceful.