'Pana-ad Festival, the 1stProvincial Expo'
BACOLOD CITY -- Tourism Secretary Ace Durano has considered the Pana-ad festival as more than just a festival. For him, it’s the 1stProvincial Exposition (Expo) or Expo Negrense. He was guest of honor during the opening of the 16thPana-ad festival with Presidential son Pampanga Rep. Mikey Arroyo.
Durano said the first time he came here, it was newly opened.
“My kids learned how to ride the bicycle here in Pana-ad. When I first came here, it was not really developed. Now, every municipality and city has its own pavilions and its showcase is improving every year,” he said.
The beauty of Pana-ad is more than a festival. It’s an exposition of what Negros Occidental can offer. And the nice thing about it, it’s whole year round because the structures of the cities and municipalities are there whole year round.
Durano also shared that in terms of tourism traffic in the country, “we’re looking at 3 million foreign tourists coming this year. This means that we are sustaining the pre-crisis level. And on top of that, we’re looking at about 8 million Filipino travelers within the country. So the total tourism traffic we have will be about 11 million. That’s the reason that despite the global economic downturn, our tourism destinations are still expanding. Our challenge is really to spread the benefits of tourism to more areas, to more provinces. Tourism will continue to expand this year,” he said.
He added there were markets which slowed down like Japan and U.S. but it’s a surprising as Europe continues to be strong for us. For the first two months, the French arrivals were still up by 30%, Russian arrivals were still up by 40%, arrivals from China were up by 60%. There were markets which slowed down, but there were also markets that are important to us that are still strong. The other positive developments are the travel by Filipinos within the country. Before, some Filipinos go outside the country to take their vacation, but now, more and more Filipinos are travelling within the country.
In 2005, travel by Filipinos within the country for leisure was about P800 million. Since 2005, it has been growing 18% annually. So we see 8 million this year. “We see the contribution of Filipinos travelling within the country should be around P2 to P3 billion.
“And if you look at where they are travelling, they are going to the same places where the foreigners are travelling. They’re staying in the same hotels were foreigners are staying. They pay the same amount like foreigners are paying. These are domestic tourists where in the past, they travel abroad. These are Filipinos who can afford to travel,” he said.
Negros Occidental has a lot of tourism attractions. But the important thing is, we put the accommodation, we improve the access and we package it so that it will become a tourist destination and not just as tourist attraction. The positive developments in Sipalay, there are so many resorts and accommodations. “I know a lot of people go to Sipalay to scuba dive already. We just need to do that in more places in Negros Occidental,” he said.
CAPTION
Tourism Secretary Ace Durano has considered the Pana-ad festival as more than just a festival. For him, it’s the 1stProvincial Exposition (Expo) or Expo Negrense. He was guest of honor during the opening of the 16thPana-ad festival.