Davao City as Mice destination

• Source:http://www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/business/2016/01/13/davao-city-mice-destination-451642
• Wednesday, January 13, 2016

By Ace June Rell S. Perez

INCREASING awareness among national and international organizers of meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (Mice) about Davao City resulted to the influx of visitors.

"We can attribute the increasing tourist arrivals to the campaign of enabling Davao City as a Mice destination," Roberto P. Alabado III told reporters on Wednesday.

He said Davao City is emerging as the top Mice destination.

According to DOT data, of Davao Region's 1,874,587 tourist arrivals from January to September 2015, most of the tourists were reported in Davao City with 1,290,480 or 69 percent of the region's tourist arrivals.

"Many of the conventions that were not held here before were already staged here because we already have convention centers that can hold national and international conventions," Alabado said.

"With the major conventions, Davao is now one of the preferred destinations for Mice," he added.

To further position Davao as a Mice destination, the tourism department will continue the Mice strategy. DOT is planning to stage more Mice road shows which will be vital to introduce the city, emphasizing Davao's unique offering of Mice incentives to various organizers who intend to hold their conventions in the city.

Also, the tourism department is now finalizing partnership from airlines partners to give Mice participants special fare discounts.

"We have talk already to airlines as partners, because one barrier during a convention here in Davao especially from Manila is the cost of travel. We are now finalizing partnerships from our airlines to offer discounts for our official Mice goers here," Alabado said.

As tourist arrivals in the city continue to grow, Davao City Investment Promotions Center (DCIPC) said that it contributed to the investment confidence of private sectors.

"Investors in the accommodation sector both Manila-based companies establishing presence here and local firms that are expanding are dependent in the trend of tourist arrivals in a specific area, as the tourist arrival increases, the applications of accommodation and hotel investments here are also moving up," Ivan C. Cortez, DCIPC officer-in-charge, said.

Some of the hotel accommodations that are set to open in the city are GoHotels, Homecrest, Dusit Thani, among others.

By February, city's hotel rooms will reach over 8,000.