The City Tourism Operations Office disclosed that the nine hundred eighty-five permitted accommodation establishments can accommodate approximately thirty thousand tourists daily.
However, Supervising Tourism Operations Officer Engr. Aloysius C. Mapalo admitted that the number of permitted hotels, inns and transient houses does not reflect the real number of operating establishments because of the presence of illegal accommodation establishments in the different barangays.
He revealed that the available rooms of the permitted establishments ae still not enough to provide the accommodation requirements of tourists visiting the city, especially during weekends when people from the lowlands flock to the Summer Capital.
The city tourism officer claimed that part of the efforts of the city government is to ensure the permitting of hotels, inns and transient houses so that the approximate number of tourist arrivals could be monitored and recorded through a system, such as the Visitors Information and Travel Assistance (VISITA) tourism application, for the guidance of policy and decision makers.
According to him, the City Tourism Operations Office and the City Permits and Licensing Office are doing their best to make sure that operating hotels, inns and transient houses are issued the required permit to operate by the city government so that the city has a database of tourist arrivals aside from making sure these establishments conform and comply with the prescribed standards of accommodation establishments.
Mapalo stipulated that another factor compounding the city’s woes in the generation of the data on tourist arrivals from the accommodation establishments is the alleged failure of the owners to declare the actual number of visitors that availed of their services, apart from the presence of walk-in tourists.
He urged concerned residents to report to the barangay or concerned offices of the local government the operation of unpermitted accommodation establishments in their neighborhood so that appropriate action could be done to immediately close the operation of these to prevent them from taking advantage of visitors wanting to avail of their services.
Further, he stipulated that most of the accommodation establishments being complained of are the illegal ones that is why efforts are underway to compel all accommodation establishments existing in the different barangays to secure the appropriate permit to operate from the city.
