LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The municipal government recognized the vital contribution of the local tourism industry stakeholders in sustaining the capital town’s gradual and safe recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that paved the way for the economy to realize the desired growth.
Mayor Romeo K. Salda stated that the emergence of new tourist destinations in the town’s 16 barangays during the pandemic was primarily due to the creativity and innovation introduced by the tourism industry stakeholders to be able to survive the heavy impact inflicted by the deadly virus to their economic activities.
He pointed out that the presence of new tourist destinations in the different barangays resulted in the creation of more jobs for displaced workers, aside from gradually bringing back the vibrance of the economy.
The municipal chief executive underscored that while tourism is one of the few sectors that were allowed to gradually resume, it will also be the sector that will be able to immediately recover because people want to move around to visit desired destinations and to discover new tourist spots.
According to him, tourists have already started to flock to the municipality to visit these old and new destinations which has contributed in slowly reviving the heavily impacted economy and allowed people regain some income.
Mayor Salda assured the continuous support of the local government in aggressively promoting the tourist destinations so that more visitors will be enticed to include La Trinidad in their must see places because of scenic attractions that are worthy of visiting from time to time.
La Trinidad recently celebrated Tourism Week with the theme ‘Rethinking Tourism: Torismong Kaledad para Sa La Trinidad’. The town is the major source of the popular strawberry and cutflowers being sold in various markets inside and outside the locality.
However, the mayor reminded the residents and visitors that Benguet is still under alert Level 2 that is why the occupancy of indoor establishments will still be limited to 50 percent pursuant to the guidelines governing the implementation of the state of national public health emergency that is why people must still comply with the strict implementation of the minimum public health standards, such as the wearing of face masks, observance of physical distancing and the practice of personal hygiene and regular disinfection.
Aside from agriculture, tourism is one of the major sources of livelihood of the constituents of the municipality.