lagawan.info

Tourist influx to the Hundred Islands here is expected to be better this year than last year’s, according to Mayor Hernani Braganza.

Speaking before the Kapehan Forum of the Pangasinan Press and Radio Club on Wednesday, Braganza said because of the eight typhoons that hit the province last year, the strongest was typhoon “Cosme”, Alaminos City which is the home of the Hundred Islands, lost about 8,200 tourists.

Braganza said the estimated number of tourists that did not visit the city because of the effect of these natural calamities was already equivalent to P1 million.

This was the amount of money that should have been paid by tourists to boat men who would have commuted them to the Hundred Islands.

There are almost 250 boatmen who regularly commute passengers from the jump off point in Barangay Lucap, Alaminos City to the Hundred Islands and back.

The amount excluded the incomes that should have been derived by owners of shops selling souvenir items, running small hotels and transient homes in Barangay Lucap and in the city proper, and those selling bangus and the Alaminos-made unique longganiza with two toothpicks in the end.

“We are hoping that the number of tourists would be much bigger this year as compared to last year’s,” said Braganza, a former Agrarian Reform and Press Secretary of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The city government collects nominal amount as guest receipts from people visiting the Hundred Islands.

Braganza said the city of Alaminos has already started an aggressive marketing strategy to promote the Hundred Islands to local and foreign tourists this summer, starting with the holding of Gali-la Hundred Islands Festival from March 18 to 22 this year.

He said he will work zealously to promote tourism in the Hundred Islands to ensure that more people will patronize it.

He commented that politics has its own time and that time is still a long way to go. (PNA)