Thursday, September 1, 2016

La Trinidad Tourism Summit 2016

Updating of tourism programs focus of 1st summit in Trinidad
by Ofelia C. Empian (from Baguio Midland Courier)

The municipality of La Trinidad held its first tourism summit from Aug. 16 to 18 gathering various stakeholders aimed at improving its unique tourist destinations.

With the theme, “Fostering a culture of tourism,” the event convened various barangay councils and private stakeholders in the town that makes up the newly reorganized Tourism Council.

Tourism Officer Valred Olsim said the activity aimed to reinvigorate the various local councils to update their tourism programs.

“Tourism programs in La Trinidad cannot be done by the LGU alone. We need the help of various stakeholders in this endeavor,” Olsim said.

The tourism office reported 16 existing tourist attractions in the municipality and 32 proposed attractions.

The top 10 tourist sites in the town are the Strawberry Farm, Benguet State University, Bell Church, cutflower farms in barangays Bahong and Alapang; La Trinidad Vegetable Trading Post, organic farms The Master’s Garden and Lily of the Valley Organic Farm; Mt. Kalugong eco park; Benguet Museum, and the Jeffrey Visaya’s Ornamental Landscape in Bahong.
   
Olsim said the top 10 sites usually make up the core tourist circuit of the town.

He said the tourism offered by the locality is agri-tourism, ecotourism, and cultural tourism.

Part of the 2015-2016 tourism plan implementation is the creation of more special events for Strawberry Festival, production of tourism promotional materials, and tourism circuit promotions.

The plan also include validation of proposed tour sites, putting up of tour site signages, tour guide trainings on customer service, and funding of some infrastructure proposals like the Betag toilet worth P300,000 and P1.8-M view deck for Km. 3.

To further improve tourism, Department of Tourism-Cordillera Director Venus Tan said they would be focusing on their collaboration on the training of flower producers in Bahong on recyc ling of waste materials from flowers into useful products.

The flower recycling workshop was held on April 19 an 20 at the Strawberry Valley Hotel.

Also, Tan said they would be engaging local coffee producers to enter into partnership with Henry & Sons, one of the biggest coffee manufacturers and exporters in the country.

The master development plan for the town is also now underway, particularly on the improvement of the Strawberry farms along with the formation of a strengthened Baguio City, La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba, Tublay area that would further upgrade tourism activities in these areas, Tan said.







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