By Leilanie G. Adriano
Staff Reporter
LAOAG CITY—Ilocos Norte continues
to attract more tourists each year. This time, tourism officials are grooming
the province as a destination for meetings, incentives, conventions and
exhibition (MICE).
Department of Tourism Region
1 Director Martin Valera in an interview that there is an increasing demand for
conferences in recent years and Ilocos Norte along with other neighboring
provinces in the region has a great potential for this specialized segment of
the tourism market.
“Various regions are becoming
competitive and each province has their own convention. For Ilocos, it offers
huge potential because of good infrastructure and support facilities so we are
good for regional and national conventions,” said Mr. Valera as he underscored
there is a need to perfect the hosting of visitors for the first time to have
repeat visitors.
To date, the Northern Luzon
Convention and Visitors Bureau is taking the lead to promote meetings in the
north while local government units are also investing in convention facilities
such as the Vigan Convention Center in Ilocos Sur and the Fort Ilocandia and
Plaza del Norte Hotel and Convention Center in Ilocos Norte.
At the forum attended by
around 50 participants from DOT-accredited accommodation establishments in the region as well as local
government units at the Java Hotel, this city, Mr. Valera hopes the first of a
kind MICE forum in the region will inspire tourism stakeholders on the
potential of MICE industry and share strategies to make Ilocos region a MICE
destination.
According to Charisse Marie
Fajardo Lacson, convention services officer of the Tourism Promotions Board and
one of the speakers at the forum said hotels need to improve its marketing and
promotions to the global market in order to sell the country as a MICE
destination.
“Let us assess our resources
for MICE and work towards meeting venue standards for the ASEAN market,” said Ms.
Lacson as she presented the country’s MICE Roadmap 2030.
Among the key strategies is
to provide enabling policies and institutional support, accelerate
infrastructure improvements, develop a highly competitive human resource and
strengthen research and development.
According to the AMR
International’s Globex 2017 Report, the Philippines is the
fastest-growing trade fair market in Asia in 2016, where space sold jumped by
9.6 percent and a MICE delegate spends nearly six times more than what an
average leisure tourist spends.
For now, Manila, Cebu and
Davao are identified as key MICE destinations in the country.
Ilocos Norte, on the other
hand is also on the process of updating its Metro Ilocos Development Plan as it
is expected to have its share in the MICE industry in the future.
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