Davao City beefs up monitoring of tourism related establishments

An all out monitoring and inspections of tourism related establishments is being conducted by a team composed of different departments of the Davao City government to ensure that safety and sanitation is being thoroughly implemented.

City tourism department head Rizal Giovanni Aportadera said they conduct unannounced inspections to check whether these establishments adopt what was stipulated in their business registration.

"We pay particular attention on restrooms and the cleanliness of the area and non compliance means their renewal for tourism accreditation be denied," he said.

He said these establishments need to renew their tourism accreditation and they will not hesitate to cancel or deny renewal if they found them violating the rules.

So far he said for those found with deficiencies readily comply with the recommendations given them by the team.

And with the coming Kadayawan Festival he said they warned the establishments that actions against violators will be toughed once tourists and other visitors would complain about the condition of their establishments including poor service.

He said they had been projecting the city as tourist destination and this should be maintained by everybody more especially with the tourism related establishments.

Earlier he said that since last year to this date Davao City ranks third tourist destinations in the country following Cebu and Boracay. Arrivals remain positive and hotels and restaurants continue to be fully booked.

Malaysia willing to share tourism expertise

With the huge volume of tourists that Malaysia hosts each year, the latest figure in 2007 pegged at 20 million, the country is willing to share their expertise to other neighboring countries insofar as tourism related services is concerned.

Malaysia Consul General to Davao Hon. Nik Mustafa Kamal Nik Ahmad in an interview at the Club 888 Forum of the Marco Polo Davao said projects like exchange studies would allow students to have wider exposure to the international tourism industry.

He said the Filipino trainees while in their country must work hard because the Malaysian and other tourists there love to dine and all hotels and restaurants are open 24 hours and their long exposure would make them more skilled as they would interact with tourists of different nationalities.

Malaysia is among the top 3 destinations in Asia and tourism industry workers will be exposed among others to clients in the Middle East.

"With more exposure they will have the good chance of increasing their marketability," he said.

Meanwhile he observed that there is not enough Malaysian coming to Mindanao because of their impression that the island is dangerous.

They (Malaysian) do not even know that there is a consulate base in Davao City even as he said that their government has not issued travel advisories banning their nationals to come to Mindanao.

"Issuing travel advisory is unfair and we do not want to do that to our neighbor," he said.

The other concern aired there number of people coming to Manila instead to Davao because of the lack of air linkages.

It is a good thing that Cebu Pacific had started the route and hopefully there would be more Malaysians traveling here because they love to travel and when they travel they want to go to several destinations.

He said tourists destinations here are really beautiful and has rich resources but it needs a lot of promotion.

The sites are comparable to places in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand only that it was not extensively promoted and there are a lot of untouched destinations here worth exploring.