Calbayog City - City of Waterfalls
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CALBAYOG CITY, Samar — The City Government here is looking at reactivating its tourism council to strengthen the link with private sector as partners in local tourism development.
Mayor Ronald Aquino said that partnership with the private sector as member of the local tourism council is vital to achieve remarkable growth in tourist arrival.
Last year, the city has welcomed 93,826 tourists, nearly half than the 53,812 visitors in 2013.
The figure is still minimal, according to Aquino, but very encouraging for the City Government. That is why they included tourism as one of local development priorities.
Dubbed as city of waterfalls, Calbayog is the home to nine waterfalls spread throughout its 880.7 square kilometers land area.
Most famous of which are Bangon and Tarangban Falls in Tinaplakan village, about 45 minutes travel from the city center up north near the boundary of Samar and Northern Samar.
Road leading to Bangon Falls are now being concreted, said Aquino.
Aside from waterfalls, Calbayog City is also taking pride for its four major dive spots inspected and validated by the Department of Tourism. These are Isla Pawikan and Puy-aw in Binaliw village, Kinawan Reef in Tinambacan district, and Daraga Islet in Malajog village.
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Please continue reading at: Calbayog Seeks Reactivation of Local Tourism Council
UJ thinks: This is all well and good, but if they don’t get the power stabilized, the airport updated and the roads fixed, people may come, but they won’t be returning. And that’s just a few problems off the top of my head. I’m sure that others living here can come up with plenty of other problems that need to be fixed here.
IMHO roads are really not as important as the attractions. The Philippines is, after all, a 3rd world country. Foreigners expect a bit of hardship adds to the mysterious orient ;). My major concern would be that if for profit organizations set up hotels or attractions, the standard procedure seems to be (for example) build a hotel, and once they get their investment back, not spend the money to maintain it but take the profit and in a few years the place is kaput. Same seems to hold true with public run attractions. MacArthur’s monument in Leyte, Palace in the sky in Tagayatay, Death March monument in Bataan. Again, just my opinion.
Agreed. The attractions/buildings would be more important. For roads I was going on an experience of mine. The first time we came to Calbayog, we came in via Tacloban from the airport. Because of the poor maintenance of the road (only 1 road to get here) it took us about 6 hours to get to Calbayog. When they finally did fix the road, the trip is only about 4 hours (and a lot less bumpy). There were so many holes in the road, we were constantly dodging to avoid the larger ones. No way to avoid them all. Constant stopping for one way traffic because of road slips too.
So it’s all important, but for safety concerns, the buildings would rate higher than the roads. It does seem like a lot of businesses are run that way. Even the smaller sari-sari stores. I imagine it’s one of the reasons why I see many businesses fail and/or being replaced by another, only to have some of them fail too.
Poor customer service is another thing that needs to be improved when/if tourists are going to be returning after an initial visit. Maybe it’s not a major deciding factor, but it sure would help a business with better customer relations. You know, for the Filipino people being such friendly people, they are not very good at customer service in many cases.
Your right on all counts UJ. One other category though. MAINTENANCE!. I have noticed many times that money is spent improving things or building attractions but they are just not maintained. But progress is progress regardless.
Maintenance yes. Buildings, that are not built by great standards anyway, are falling apart and IF they are repaired, it takes a long time to get accomplished. Roads are constantly in need of repair and always seem to be behind in that too.