DOT Braces for World Tourism Day and National Tourism Week This Month

Tacloban City (PNA) — The Department of Tourism calls for stronger participation in promoting tourism as an economic growth driver as the country observes the World Tourism Day and the National Tourism Week (NTW) this month.

Anchored on the theme “Tourism and Community Development,” the NTW celebration, slated last week of September, will focus on the ability of tourism to empower people and to provide them with skills that will help them achieve change in their communities.

In her speech during Monday’s celebration of the Philippine Civil Service Month, DOT regional director Karina Rosa Tiopes echoed United Nations World Tourism Organization Secretary Taleb Rifai’s statement that this year’s theme brings to the forefront the potential that tourism has in promoting fresh opportunities.

“We are contributing to a long value chain that creates jobs, provides livelihoods, empowers local communities and ultimately brings in new opportunities for a better future,” Tiopes said, quoting Rifai’s speech of the latter’s visit in the region early this year.

After the devastation of the typhoon “Yolanda” (Haiyan) in most parts of Eastern Visayas, Tiopes noted the local economy rebounded because of the resurgence of businesses few weeks after the disaster.

“Our way of recovery is one good example of how tourism and community development go hand in hand,” Tiopes said.

“Tourism is playing a key role under the ‘build back better’ rehabilitation and recovery plan of the government that provides for the income generation thru tourism livelihood programs,” she added.

Along with the celebration of the NTW, the launching of the National Crime Prevention Week as well as the Civil Service month were also observed to acknowledge that “peace and order and good governance are key ingredients to a strong and vibrant tourism.”

The DOT encourages tourism stakeholders and host communities to come together and celebrate as a symbol of their common efforts in making tourism a pillar of community development.

The NTW is celebrated from the 21st to 27th day of September to highlight tourism’s social, cultural, political and economic value.

WTD, the biggest and most widely celebrated global day for tourism, was first celebrated on 27 September 1980, a date chosen to coincide with the adoption of the UNWTO Statutes on September 27, 1970. (PNA) LAM/PGL/CVSTOMANDA-OJT/EGR