TACLOBAN CITY – The Department of Tourism (DOT) here in the region has asked local leaders to be active in gathering tourism-related statistics to know the tourism situation within their areas.

Statistics are important especially if they ask for funding for tourism-related projects, says tourism regional director Karina Rosa Tiopes during her recent meeting with 12 mayors in Southern Leyte.

“You have to make sure that you have a tourism statistics. No statistics, no assistance,” she added.
“It is really good to understand numbers because these numbers tells us whether we are doing the right thing (and if) if there are gaps; when we develop our products or at marketing,” Tiopes added.

Among the top tourist spots in Southern Leyte’s second district are Limasawa; San Pablo and San Pedro beaches in Hinunangan; and Sogod Bay.

Meanwhile, the DOT in the region is still consolidating data provided by tourism officers of the province on the update of tourist arrivals for the second semester of this year.

But for the first semester of 2022, the second district of Southern Leyte recorded 185, 632 day time tourist arrivals, contributing a big chunk to the 411, 207 arrivals for the entire Eastern Visayas.

Last year of the same period, the province was visited by 446,426 tourists.
Aside from statistics, Tiopes asked the mayors to have their own tourism plan.

“We have to be prepared to usher in our guests. We cannot just say that I have a tourism site why not promote it, we must not promote it unless it is ready,” Tiopes stressed.

They must also have a clear tourism product and market development, she added.
Tiopes said that in product development they are biased in supporting people organizations whom they train to be entrepreneurs, and providing them with the appropriate skills in order for them to provide a great service.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)

TACLOBAN CITY – The city government of Ormoc is conducting a survey on what courses that will be offered for the proposed community college to be run by the local government.
This was disclosed by Mayor Lucy Torres-Gomez who explained that by doing a survey, particularly among businessmen in the city, graduates from the planned community college will easily lands a job.

“We are not just picking courses. We are running a survey para we will know what are the gaps and to know what skills and courses the business community needs,” she said.

“We are looking at offering not too many courses. We just want to start with the first three to five in demand courses because we want to make a difference in the employment,” Gomez added.

Gomez further said that they also want that all graduates of the community college will no longer look for jobs outside the city.

Students from Ormoc City who are qualified will have a full scholarship, it was learned.
As part of this preparation, Ormoc officials led by Mayor Gomez and Leyte Rep. Richard Gomez, a former mayor of the city, visited Valenzuela last August 2.

The city of Valenzuela, which has a sisterhood agreement with Ormoc, runs its own college school.

“We are very delighted to become a sister city of Valenzuela because this is the place which sparked our goal of creating a beautiful community college in Ormoc. When we first came here last July, we saw your college and we were very impressed, it was so beautiful and we realized it was something we needed in Ormoc,” Mayor Gomez said during the signing of the sisterhood agreement last August 2.

Prior to having a sisterhood agreement with Valenzuela, the city government also had a benchmarking in Burauen town that has its own community college established in 2019 with only 549 students and now has more than 4,000 enrolled students not only from the municipality but also from its neighboring towns. (ROEL T. AMAZONA)