North Phil cashes in on 2011 tourism growth; readies expo

The Department of Tourism Regional Offices – CAR, Cagayan Valley Region, Ilocos and Pangasinan and Central Luzon are staging a grand exposition to attract more tourists and ensure their share in the country’s growing foreign visitor arrivals, which posted an 11.83 percent increase to 2.3 million in the first seven months of 2011 from 2.04 million in the same period last year.

Director Ronnie P. Tiotuico of the Central Luzon Office of the Department of Tourism (DOT) said the expo could help bring in both foreign and domestic tourists to North Philippines and attract investments in the region, which contributed substantially to the country’s $2.5 billion in tourism receipts in 2010, or 11.37 percent more than the $2.35 billion in 2009.

Tiotuico said North Philippines’ major destinations alone accounted for 14 percent of the country’s total foreign and domestic tourist volume of 11.7 million in 2010.

These major North Philippines destinations are the provinces of Zambales (Region 3 - Central Luzon), Cagayan (Region 2 – Cagayan Valley), Ilocos Norte (Region 1 – Ilocandia), and the city of Baguio (Cordillera Autonomous Region), all combining for a whopping 1.55 million total foreign and domestic tourists last year.

“To raise these figures even further and make tourism render a high and lasting impact on the region’s economy, we are staging the North Philippines (NorthPhil) Tourism and Travel Expo 2011 as both a travel trade promotion and a consumer marketing event catering to both foreign and domestic markets,” Tiotuico explained.

Constituting the NorthPhil Expo 2011 are tourism exhibits, special events, and social and business functions.

The tourism exhibits will feature the pavilions of the provinces of Aurora, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Tarlac, the freeport zones of the Clark Development Corporation and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, the DOT regional offices in the Cordilleras, Ilocos and Pangasinan, Cagayan Valley and Central Luzon, and the corporate booths of various tourism-related businesses. This year’s expo will also be participated in by DOT Regional Offices from Visayas and Mindanao.

To be showcased in the exhibit booths and pavilions are popular, new and emerging tourism destinations, attractions, and products and services that are unique to the region.
Adding color and excitement to the exhibits are special events that include theatrical cultural presentations, corporate game shows, product presentations, raffle draws, and crafts and culinary demonstrations.

The trade exhibitors/sellers and invited buyers of travel packages and tourism products and services will then gather in a dinner and cocktails for business networking.

This annual expo has been drawing local and international attention to North Philippines, which hosts a diverse but contiguous sprawl of tourism attractions boasting two international gateways – the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in Clark and the international freeport in Subic, which also has its own airport.

DMIA, whose international passenger traffic alone reportedly reached 607,704 in 2010, is strategically connected directly to the Subic Freeport Zone via the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX), another world-class infrastructure.

The high volume of tourist traffic generated by such facilities spills over to the SM City Clark, where the NorthPhil Expo 2011 will be held on Nov. 11 to 13 to gain wide market exposure for its exhibits and other special tourism marketing events.

“The results of the interactions between buyers and sellers at the expo would help us determine the industry’s product development goals and the government’s infrastructure development thrust,” Tiotuico earlier said.

Nonetheless, Tiotuico said Central Luzon alone has been gaining a sustained increase in local and foreign visitor arrivals from around 315,000 in 2006 to 430,000 in 2007, 530,802 in 2008, and 550,452 in 2009.

“But we want these figures to go up, not just in Central Luzon, but in the rest of North Philippines,” Tiotuico stressed, citing the expo as a strategic marketing move.

The expo is supported by the Central Luzon Tourism Council and the Philippine Exhibits and Themeparks Corporation (PETCO) as event manager.

More information on the expo can be obtained from PETCO (tel. [632] 8329303 to 05, fax [632] 5562723, email northphilexpo@gmail.com, and website www.northphilexpo.com).