SABLAN, Benguet – The municipal government tapped the residents living in communities around various tourist destinations in the municipality to be its partners in providing visitors with one-of-a-kind experience when visiting the scenic tourist spots located in the different parts of the town.
Mayor Alfredo Dacumos, Jr. said that by involving the people living near the tourist destinations and instilling in them the importance of sustaining the attraction of the said places, more visitors will be enticed to visit the must-see places as part of their rest and recreation endeavors.
He disclosed that the municipal government involved the residents living the communities within the tourist spots to put up decent comfort rooms, wash areas, food establishments, among others, and for them to maintain these as part of their sources of livelihood to ensure there will be no unnecessary dumping of solid and liquid waste in the said destinations.
“We want our residents to have a stake in the aggressive promotion of our various tourist destinations because the municipal government cannot do it alone. We have to ensure the active involvement of our constituents in the sustainable maintenance of our tourist spots and their environs so that people can be convinced to frequent the locality and enjoy their break in our various waterfalls, rivers, agri-tourism farms, among others,” Mayor Dacumos stressed.
According to him, tourism will be serving as an added industry to agriculture that will provide alternative sources of income for the residents as this could go side by side with each other to improve the economic activities of the people.
He underscored that agriculture and tourism are ideal partners and drivers of growth and development, especially in low-income municipalities like Sablan, thus the municipal government is doing its best to extend available assistance to sustain the economic activities of people despite its meager resources.
Mayor Dacumos expressed the municipal government’s gratitude to the concerned residents for being receptive to the undertakings to make them partners in the sustainable development of existing and potential tourist spots since they will be the ones who will reap the fruits of the projected increase in tourist arrivals to the different destinations in the municipality.
Sablan tourist destinations are part of the various must-see places that are being aggressively promoted by the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) Tourism Council so that visitors frequenting Baguio City will also patronize the different tourist spots near the country’s undisputed Summer Capital for them to have a share of the increasing tourist arrivals in the highly urbanized city.
Dacumos stated that future partnerships will be forged by the municipal government with other interested residents to help in improving the current status of potential tourist destinations so that these areas will be ready to accommodate the expected influx of visitors who want to experience the various offerings in the municipality.
