Dinagyang gets more invitations to perform
The Dinagyang Festival continues to receive more invitations to perform both in domestic and foreign locales.
City tourism Benito Jimena said these invitations were the result of the all-out promotion the Iloilo Dinagyang Foundation, Incorporated (IDFI) has conducted during the last five years. The promotional efforts also resulted in garnering the Association of Tourism Officers in the Philippines' highest award for two consecutive years running.
Jimena said that invitations for performances next year and for the last three months of the year are pouring in. Even the Discovery Shores in Boracay he added, has written Mayor Jerry P. Treñas requesting for a Dinagyang tribe to perform during the opening of the Cornell Hotel Society Asia Pacific Regional Meeting on November 3rd.
There is also an invitation for Jimena to be one of the judges in the Pintaflores Festival in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental on November 3rd-5th. The GMA News and Public Affairs has also sent their invitation to Jimena and to the Miss Dinagyang 2007 to grace one of their newly-launched shows.
"We are now reaping the rewards of our constant promotional efforts and our exposure to other places is a sure way of making noise for the city of Iloilo," Jimena further said.
For the first quarter this year alone, Dinagyang has already performed in Santiago City, Isabela for the Pataraday Festival and at the Aliwan Fiesta in Metro Manila last April 28th. The contingent also went to Minneapolis and San Antonio, Texas in the United States last June to perform for the Filipino community in there.
Meanwhile, Treñas is grateful to the IDFI for the success that the festival has achieved. "It is because of the IDFI's commitment that Dinagyang is generating all these interest and attention. I certainly look forward to a grander, more colorful edition of the festival this coming January," the mayor added. (EAM/PIO)