By Hilda Austria/PNA
BANI, Pangasinan — The municipal government here is limiting the number of tourists to its famous Busay Falls, as it recently imposed an ecological protection fee to preserve the natural environment in its tourist spots.
Municipal Tourism Officer Rommel Dulay said on Tuesday that despite the booming tourism in their town, they have refrained from promoting Busay, one of the town’s tourist spots, to control the number of people visiting the place.
“After Busay became popular because of social media, a lot of tourists flocked the place. This was good because the tourist arrival increased the town’s income as well as gave livelihood source to the residents in the place. But we have also seen how this trend affected the place’s natural environment,” he explained.
The tourism office recorded 13,000 tourist arrivals from Nov. 2, 2017 to March 30, 2018 before it was closed to the public and was reopened in December 2018.
“We opened Busay Falls to the public but still, we wanted to control the number of people visiting the falls to give a rest for a while,” he said.
Dulay further said that a PHP30-ecological protection fee was implemented last year through an ordinance by the Sangguniang Bayan, which would be used for the maintenance of tourist spots, among others.
Aside from Busay Falls, the town also has caves, beaches and mountains that are also opened for tourists.
“We have Olanen, Tobong, Licupen and Surip beaches here. We also have Surip Cave, Nalsoc Cave, Abot Aso Cave, Nangadiyan Cave and Dumaloy Cave. Another falls is situated in our town, which is the Baliwangga Falls and we also have here the mangrove areas and many more,” Dulay said.
He urged the tourists to be aware of their campaign to preserve the natural environment of these tourist spots.
