By Ronald O. Reyes
TACLOBAN CITY, April 24 (PNA)– Lorna Rocabo, 43, sits inside her glass-panelled office comfortably, interrupted only between answering phone calls and signing some papers delivered to her desk by her staff.
“Today is already something different. The bookings continue and visitors are growing, even times three than the past,” said Rocabo, who works as sales and marketing manager at Leyte Park Hotel.
Considered as the biggest hotel and resort in Tacloban City, the six-hectare Leyte Park Hotel was also virtually turned into a humanitarian headquarter immediately after Yolanda, the world’s most powerful typhoon to hit land, levelled the city and most parts of Leyte province in November 8, 2013.
More than 7,000 people were killed during the storm mostly in Tacloban, with estimated PHP130 billion properties damaged. At Leyte Park, at least six international aid groups to include Red Cross had positioned in the hotel after Yolanda, with Oxfam as the last to leave the area in March.
Yet, according to Rocabo, there is now a striking form of rebirth which is surprisingly making its way into the cityscape and into the people just over a year after the storm, courtesy of the tourism industry.
“I was afraid, hopeless. I thought I would be jobless by now,” Rocabo told this writer, shaking her head, as she tried to recall her ordeal during Yolanda.
“Yolanda gave us mileage. At the time the news and features about us may have been about the devastation and the challenges it brought our way. But this crisis also brought along opportunities,” said Karen Tiopes, regional tourism director.
“The Eastern Visayas tourism industry saw this and transformed the crisis into an opportunity. At the onset, when hundreds of volunteer groups were here, tourism enterprises saw opportunities for business,” she said.
With this development, Tiopes said hotel and accommodation facilities, food, transports, entertainment, and souvenir items, among others, flourished around the city and in the region.
As of mid April, statistical data on revenue generated from visitors arrivals to various attractions in Eastern Visayas from 2013 to 2014 reached PHP3.3 billion.
While visitor arrivals, both domestic and foreign, reached over three million, with 2014, the year after Yolanda, generating more tourists.
Some of the natural attractions getting good reviews in the region include the Sambawan Island in Biliran; Sohoton National Park in Basey, Samar; Macrohon Fish Sanctuary and many dive sites in Southern Leyte; Biri Rock Formation in Northern Samar; Torpedo Boat Extreme Ride in Paranas, Samar; Pink Sand Beach in San Vicente, Northern Samar; Capul Island in Northern Samar; Canigao Island in Matalo, Leyte; other heritage sites in Tacloban and Leyte, among others.
“We also saw the opportunity to promote the region capitalizing on the media mileage and name recall that Yolanda generated. The industry endeavored to build back the image of Eastern Visayas, this time, showing its tourism assets,” Tiopes said, following the statement of Taleb Rifai, secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization when he visited the city last year.
During his first time visit in the city, Rifai pointed out on the importance of tourism to create jobs and restore the economy in devastated areas.
“We have seen the industry lost so much…Don’t give up. Because if you will do, you will send wrong message to the world. Tell the world you are ready,” Rifai earlier urged the tourism industry players in the region, adding tourism is a “stubborn” business.
As for Lorna and other 109 employees in the hotel, the ongoing recovery in their workplace helped them in bringing back their faith on the future of the city. “I can continue sending my two children to school now, while my husband can also keep his job as chef here in the hotel,” Rocabo said, adding that the hotel holds a “special place” in her heart since it is here where she and her husband Elmer first met.
“When our house and this hotel were destroyed, I told to myself this is the end. I was wrong. We just need to be positive,” she said, smiling.
BETTER INFRASTRUCTURE URGED
With Tacloban and most of Eastern Visayas now known to the world after Yolanda, businessmen in the region also called on the national government to seriously push its “build back better” programs in devastated areas.
“Within the next two to three years we should see the basic infrastructure of our tourist sites to become even better in order to entice and handle a greater influx of local and international tourists,” said Oliver Cam, point person for trade, industry and information and communication technology of chamber of commerce and industry in Leyte and the region.
According to Cam, who also acted a consultant of the Eastern Visayas Business Recovery Center under the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, better support infrastructure should be constructed to match the massive campaign of the tourism department as it is gearing for the revival of the tourism potential of Eastern Visayas.
“More people worldwide now know exactly where we are and how to get here. Based on what I see, the national government has funded more tourism development projects and programs for the region in the history of Department of Tourism in Eastern Visayas, if I’m not mistaken,” Cam said on the tourism advantage of the region after Yolanda.
Cam, however slammed the government for the “very poor proactive planning of Department of Transportation and Communication in 2014 up to the present in the Tacloban Airport runway rehabilitation.” The Tacloban city airport is considered the gateway to the region.
In a statement however the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines in the region said that repair of the airport will be completed by April 30 this year. “The ongoing runway repairs give way for the scraping and asphalting works of the remaining 300 meters of runway…improving vital airport facilities for the safety of the flying public,” CAAP said
“Hotel occupancy rates have actually dropped or decreased by over 30 percent ever since they re-imposed plane-size limitations back to the turbo-propeller planes last April 14, 2015. We normally have 80 percent to 90 percent occupancy during summer season, but now we just average around 50 percent to 60 percent since the restart of the runway rehabilitation,” Cam said in an interview online, citing personal experience based on visitor occupancy in his own hotel business.
Nevertheless, Cam called on everyone to “continue supporting and visiting our upcoming and currently developed tourist sites, programs and activities,” adding tourism has a direct effect on inclusive growth and household incomes of tourist-ready communities.
“Eastern Visayas is now officially the number one poorest region in the Philippines. Tourism is one way for which has a direct effect in getting more families and households to earn above the poverty thresholds, thus support is greatly needed from everyone,” Cam told this writer online.
“In particular we still need more local private sector investments in tourism infrastructure, facilities and programs. Local hotel owners are encouraged to network, develop and offer more competitive tour packages and plans in partnership with local tourist-ready communities, tour operators and the Eastern Visayas’s tourism to continue to build up and sustain the growth of tourism in the region.”
Meanwhile, the national government said that as of April 1, 2015, about 60 percent of the projects in the region under its Yolanda-recovery assistance programs “have been completed, with many others nearing completion.”
“Aside from helping repair partially damaged provincial, city, municipal halls, public markets and civic centers, our office has been tasked with overseeing the reconstruction and repairs of both totally and partially damaged facilities in the villages like their halls and civic centers,” said information officer Myles Colasito of the interior and local government office in the region.
“Thirty one of 57 local governments have already been released funds amounting to P498 million for Yolanda-recovery assistance batch two, which will be implemented by the city and municipality,” Colasito said.
CHURCH RECOVERY STRENGTHENS PEOPLE
Aside from the continued restoration of government infrastructures in Yolanda-hit areas in Eastern Visayas, the Catholic church has said that rehabilitation of religious sites will also help in bringing back the faith of the survivors to their communities.
“The Archdiocese of Palo is that thankful for the prayers and support for the rehabilitation efforts of the Archdiocese. Houses and Ecclesiastical Edifices are now restored and still others on the process of restoration,” said Fr. Chris Arthur Militante, spokesman of the Archdiocese.
According to Militante, these structures are “beacons of faith by the people in the Archdiocese.” “Tourists and pilgrims may be drawn to these religious sites, but what we desire the most is that people be drawn to ultimate good and beauty itself who is God,” he said. “May the Churches and sites – with religious significance, not only remain as structures, but above all instruments to strengthen communities and the faith.”
Recovery of church structures was also recognized when on Jan. 17 about 700,000 people flocked to Tacloban and nearby town of Palo, in Leyte during the visit of Pope Francis.
The Sto. Niño Parish Church and Palo Metropolitan Cathedral are some of the church structures now fully restored through its various donors in the country and abroad Said structures also draw hundreds of visitors as tourism is revived in the region after the devastation from typhoon Yolanda. (PNA)