By Perla Lena/Philippine News Agency
ILOILO CITY — The City Tourism and Development Office (CTDO) wants to reach out to drivers in this highly urbanized city as the next recipients of its “Joyride Ta” after the mid-term elections.
The “Joyride Ta” is a tourism awareness program developed by the CTDO to deepen the understanding of front-liners about this city and what it can offer to its visitors.
“We would like to reach out to our drivers because they are in direct contact with our guests,” CTDO head, Junel Ann Divinagracia, said in an interview Wednesday.
Divinagracia said that in other parts of the country, even tricycle drivers know how to sell their places.
Last March, the awareness program catered to female senior citizens in celebration of Women’s Month.
“We will have this sustained because most of them are interested to become site guides,” she added.
Since the program began last December, about 300 tourism front-liners have already benefitted from it.
“That is still not enough because we have thousands of front-liners,” she said, adding that they also would like to tap the receptionists of various agencies who are in direct contact with guests.
The CTDO has prepared packages of destinations where the recipients of the program are being toured for free.
During the tour, they are updated of the developments in the city, a little of the city’s history, and the stories of the destinations.
“This is a continuous program to instill the culture of tourism, especially to our front-liners,” she said.
The program is also part of the city government’s preparations as the city expects a 15-percent increase, or 1.3 million tourist arrivals this year.
In 2018, Iloilo City registered 1,242,087 arrivals. Of the number, 1,154,550 were domestic guests; 70,787 were foreign guests; and 16,750 were overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
Divinagracia cited as one of the reasons of the increase the Boracay closure when most of the visitors were diverted to Iloilo.
“They saw how beautiful Iloilo is. So, word of mouth — we expect these people, through word of mouth, they will bring in more guests, more conventions, more visitors for us,” she added.
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