The Department of Tourism XI (DOT-XI) will accredit more tourism-oriented establishments in the Davao region in 2019.
Newly-appointed DOT-XI regional director Tanya Rabat-Tan said her office is targeting to accredit more hotels, restaurants and other establishments catering to tourists and visitors in the region as part of the agency’s plans under in her watch.
“We will strengthen our accreditation campaigns as we will visit and communicate with the different local chief executives in the region, in order to help them in having more establishments accredited,” she said.
Rabat-Tan said that she does not have the exact figures as of the moment but according to her, DOT is relying on the local government units’ (LGUs) listing of tourism-related establishments.
According to the Davao City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO), there are 2,606 establishments in the city alone as of January 2019.
CTOO head Generose Tecson, in a previous report, said that CTOO had requested the Davao City Business Bureau to block the renewal of the business permit of 300 establishments for not complying with the tourism licensing requirements.
Meanwhile, in a Davao Region 2018 Socioeconomic Performance Report by the National Economic and Development Authority XI (NEDA-XI), the region recorded 2,188,474 domestic tourist arrivals, a 14-percent increase from 1,918,233 in 2017; while 131,028 foreign tourist arrivals were recorded, up by 16-percent from 113,395 in 2017.
However, NEDA-XI director Maria Lourdes D. Lim said that the figures are not that accurate as the data given by DOT are only coming from accredited establishments. The figures do not include arrivals that do not get reported by the tourism-oriented establishments for one reason or another.
