SIARGAO ISLAND, Surigao del Norte—This northeastern Mindanao resort island is rebranding itself from being the country’s premier surfing destination to a destination of clean and green tourism attractions, also mostly on adventure and family fun, in its bid to entice year-round visit.
Only last year that the island was included in the prime Civil Aeronautics Administration of the Philippines approval to upgrade its 1.2-kilometer Class 2 principal, or minor domestic airport, to international status, with immediate plan to add one more kilometer to its strip and expand the runway width by another 300 meters.
Mayor Alfredo Matugas Coro II of Del Carmen town here said rebranding already propped up plans from all the nine municipalities of Siargao Island to prime up their attractions and product offering.
His town, for example, is crafting up production to marketing package of its mangoes, and other beaches and pools were being improved for the family.
“There are caving, diving and kayaking activities in the other beaches,” he told reporters on Thursday at the side of the Climate Change seminar here organized by the Department of Agriculture and the Philippine Agricultural Journalists Inc.
What was quite successful so far was the emergence of being one of the world’s game-fishing destination held on the end of March toward May, he said.
“These are more of adventure type, but the construction of pools and developing beaches at the other side of the island would be intended to families of surfers,” he said.
The island’s natural landscape and natural shield from adverse changes in the climate is its natural attraction though, he said. Siargao Island’s 120,000 hectares of mangrove is the country’s largest National Integrated Protected Areas System site.
Coro also said a major reshaping of policy on garbage disposal was under way to avoid the pitfalls and problems that weighed down on other tourist destinations. “There are also moves to develop organic agriculture, as well as to improve fishing to directly benefit both farmers and fishermen.” The rebranding would hope to spike further the 100,000 annual visits by tourists, which started with only 38,000 in 2010.
“We have to spread around the economic benefits of tourism to the more than 120,000 residents of the island,” he added. In 2010 poverty index was pegged at 67 percent. The approval to upgrade the Sayak Airport, more popularly known as Siargao Airport, would also be intended to persuade airline companies to use their bigger aircraft. The airport could accommodate only the turbo-prop and Bombardier aircrafts. “We could not attract more flights because airline companies are buying bigger planes,” he said.
By next year, Coro said the Department of Public Works and Highways would have completed the concreting of the 162-kilometer circumferential road.
“More than improving access, we are also improving governance and services to locals and tourists, and health services improved on the area of trauma therapy to respond to accidents in surfing and other adventure sports,” he said.
He said peace and order “is not a problem here, because no one is interested to come here to commit crime; they won’t just cross the 60-km stretch of water [from mainland Surigao del Norte] or the Pacific Ocean to commit something bad.”
“The prime motive to improve governance and increase tourism is to improve the livelihood of our people,” he said, saying that “we have to provide more opportunities other than fishing, that only earn them an average of P2,000 a month.”
Image credits: Manuel T. Cayon