Walk tour for HRM studes set

By Cheneen R. Capon
The Department of Tourism (11) will launch the Visit Davao Food Trip and Walking Tour for students of Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM) and tourism programs of different universities and colleges in Davao City from April 23 to 28.
Speaking during the Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Annex yesterday, blogger Olan Emboscado said the activity will be participated by 10 students and one adviser per day from member schools and universities of Tourism Educators’ Association of Davao City (TEADC).
“The culinary immersion activity will feature Davao homegrown restaurants and local flavors of Davao through a market visit and local food appreciation,” Emboscado said.
As part of the Visit Davao Fun Sale 2015, Emboscado said the three-level food trip will start with a walk tour at San Pedro Street where some of Davao’s iconic edifices like the City Hall, San Pedro Cathedral, old parks and Museo Davao are located.
Afterwards, participants will proceed to food trip composed of a market tour where students will go to Bankerohan to taste sikwate (hot chocolate drink), puto-maya (rice cake) and kinutil.
For the first level, students will go to participating restaurants, namely Bistro Rosario, Tiny Kitchen, and Chippens, among others to complete the food trip experience.
“Intertwined with the event Madrid Fusion Flavors of the Philippines in Manila, participating restaurants here will be serving Davao-Spanish food and dishes,” he said.
TEADC public information officer Jemary Lou O. Supena said the event “is very helpful” to tourism and HRM students in Davao City because it will give them the experience and field exposure.
Supena said learning about the course will go out of the boundaries of the four corners of classrooms and theoretical books.
Meawhile, advisers of TEADC will also join the food tour of Chef Gene Gonzales, level of the trip known as the Davao Food Tour which is all about training the trainers, on May 14 and 15 along with the tour guides and selected tour operators.
The highlights of the said learning activity will be the closing program on May 16 where the things learned from the students’ exposure on Visit Davao Food Trip and Walking Tour will be incorporated with the learnings of advisers from the lecture and demonstration of Chef Gene’s Davao Food Tour.
The whole program will be finalized and later be fine-tuned with the help of all participants which will be under the third level of the food tour event. Among these participants are tour guides, tour operators, bloggers, media, restaurant owners and tourism and HRM advisers.
Emboscado said this year’s pilot event will be the basis of the same event that will be formally open and available to tour operators next year.