Tourist arrivals soar under President Rody

An increase of 8 percent tourist arrival was seen after former Mayor Rodrigo Duterte won the presidential race in 2016.

City Tourism Officer Regina Rosa Tecson said that in 2016, the city recorded 1.850 million tourist arrivals in the city, higher than the 1.730 million of tourist arrival in 2015.

She said that Duterte became the biggest endorser of the city when he decided to throw his hat in the presidential race.

The Tourism office even included the infamous green house of the President as one of the tourist destinations in the city.

“The President is our biggest endorser in the tourism aspect ever since he decided to run there was an increase of tourist arrivals since the people wanted to witness the ‘exhibit a’ of the president,” Tecson said.

She said that they also included Duterte as one of the icons of the city to attract more tourists to visit the city.

“Before we only have 4 icons, the waling-waling, Mt. Apo, durian and the Philippine Eagle, now we have 5. The President is now our 5th icon,” she said.

She added that on this year’s 80th Araw ng Davao celebration, they will be expecting more than 150,000 tourist arrivals in the city since Davao has been making names after Duterte won the presidency.

This year’s Araw ng Davao celebration will run for 2 weeks starting on March 1 to 16 and will even be extended up to the 18th.

During last year’s celebration, Duterte made an emotional goodbye to the Davaoeṅos since it was to be his last ARAW NG Davao as Mayor of the city.

He even made his political sortie here on the very day of the Araw ng Davao.

Duterte has been mayor of the city for more than 2 decades.

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