Several convention center projects are expected to gear up Davao City’s bid to become one of the country’s MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, Exhibitions) destinations.
Among these projects are the Davao International Convention and Exhibition Center and the SM City Lanang convention facility.
According to City Investments and Promotions Center head Jason Magnaye, the two convention centers would have a capacity of 3,000-4,000 persons each. The two projects are located adjacent to each other in the City’s booming Lanang area.
Magnaye said the Davao International Convention and Exhibition Center will be built on a two-hectare land. The project, initiated by a group of Filipino-Chinese businessmen, is tentatively set to open late next year or early 2013.
The SM convention facility which will be located at the SM Davao complex in Lanang is expected to be completed by March 2012.
Magnaye hopes the projects will be completed by the time the City hosts the MICE convention in March 2013.
Also nearing completion is the 8,000-seater University of Southeastern Philippines multipurpose Gymnasium, which according to USEP president Dr. Perfecto Alibin, can also serve as a major convention center.
Magnaye said they will be marketing and promoting all the convention facilities of the City to attract more of the MICE market.
At present the biggest convention facility in Davao is the Central Bank Convention Hall which can only accommodate around 2,000 people.
Magnaye says that in 2011 alone they recorded 40 meetings and conventions held in the City, ten of them national conventions.
The holding of these events in the City, Magnaye said, contributed largely to the 370,000 visitor arrivals in the City as of the first quarter of 2011, higher than last year’s 1st quarter visitor figures of 335,000.
The DCIPC chief and current city tourism operations office head added that he expects visitor arrivals in the City to breach the 700,000 people level. [PIA 11/Rudolph G. Alama]
