WATERFALLS, piña embroidery, the Ati-atihan festival. These are some of the other places and features tourists can see when visiting the rest of the province of Aklan. Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo told the BusinessMirror that her agency is now developing more tourism products in the province to ease the pressure off Boracay Island, the popular island resort in the municipality of Malay.
“I’ve asked our regional office to coordinate with the Aklan provincial tourism office to come up with new destinations and products for tourists to visit, so they aren’t just all focused on Boracay,” she said, adding that the carrying capacity of the island has long been breached, and it’s “important to spread out the tourists and get them to see other destinations.”
She is also eyeing the development of Caticlan itself as a tourism area to attract hotels to build there instead of Boracay. “This way, the accommodations, restaurants and other commercial establishments can be concentrated on Caticlan and if people want to visit Boracay, they can go on day tours,” she noted.
The tourism chief said she will ask the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority to study the possibility of turning Caticlan into a tourism enterprise zone. As a TEZ, it will be entitled to tax incentives to encourage hotels to build there instead of on Boracay. The Tieza is the infrastructure arm of the Department of Tourism (DOT).
The DOT estimates that the carrying capacity of Boracay, dubbed one of the best islands in the world for its long, powdery, white-sand beach, was breached in 2009, when visitor arrivals then reached some 650,000. Last year visitor arrivals on the island reached 2 million.
Even lawyer Helen Catalbas, DOT regional director for Western Visayas, underscored that there are other places in the region that tourists can go to. “Boracay is not Western Visayas, and vice versa. We have a lot of other places to offer visitors to the region.”
President Duterte has tasked Environment s Secretary Roy A. Cimatu and Officer in Charge of the Department of the Interior and Local Government Eduardo M. Año to clean up and rehabilitate Boracay by August this year. Both agencies are currently cracking down on violators of easement and environmental regulations, and drawing up a charge sheet of local government officials and officials in national government agencies who may have contributed to the environmental degradation of Boracay.
Since March 7, the local government of Malay has been enforcing the demolition orders of the DENR issued to Boracay establishments violating easement regulations and helping others self-demolish their spaces on the main white beachfront.
While no final decision has yet been made on whether or not the island will be put under a state of calamity, and whether or not it will be closed for two months as Año has been pushing, the DOT has stopped promoting Boracay in travel and tour exhibitions overseas. Teo said the DOT will now promote other destinations in Aklan and the nearby provinces of Antique, Iloilo, Capiz and Negros Occidental, which comprise Panay Island.
According to the Aklan provincial tourism office, among its major sights and activities include the Ati-atihan festival in Kalibo, which happens on the feast day of the Santo Niño in third week of January, Jawili Falls and Beach in Tangalan, pottery making in Lezo, Hinugtan Beach in Buruanga and the Aklan Sampaguita Gardens in New Washington. The DOT chief underscored that Aklan is also the source of valuable piña cloth, and the workshops and stores of its weavers and craftswomen make a worthwhile visit.
In 2017 total visitor arrivals in Western Visayas reached 5.85 million, exceeding the DOT’s target of 5.52 million for that year. Of the total, 4.64 million were domestic travelers, while the rest were foreign tourists, according to data from the DOT. These visitors generated some P128 billion in tourist receipts in 2017, up 12.7 percent, from receipts in 2016.
While Aklan, specifically Boracay, received the largest chunk of visitors to the region, other provinces benefited, as well: Iloilo City in Iloilo attracted 1.08 million; Guimaras, Iloilo, 128,256; Bacolod City in Negros Occidental, 831,687; Capiz, 229,195; and Antique, 162,925.
Image credits: Aklan Provincial Tourism Office