The Department of Tourism Eastern Visayas regional office in Tacloban City. (PNA file photo)
TACLOBAN CITY – The Department of Tourism (DOT) has upped its efforts to capacitate local tourism officers in the gathering and submission of basic tourism statistics.
DOT 8 (Eastern Visayas) regional director Karina Rosa Tiopes said on Thursday the gathering of tourism statistics remains a big challenge in their bid to see the general picture of tourism arrivals in the region.
These figures include tourist arrivals, day and night tourists, receipts, and specific sites they have visited.
“There is an increase in tourism arrival in 2022 compared to 2021, but we don’t have the exact figure. We are still processing statistics from local tourism offices. One of the most difficult parts is the different ways of submission. Some submit their figures in PDF copies and we have to encode the data and make analysis,” Tiopes told reporters.
This week, the DOT gathered tourism officers for the first level of standard local tourism statistics system capacity building.
Participants are provincial tourism officers of Leyte, Biliran, and Eastern Samar provinces, as well as city tourism officers of Maasin, Tacloban, Baybay, and Calbayog.
Also joining are municipal tourism officers from the provinces of Leyte, Southern Leyte, Biliran, Samar, Northern Samar, and Eastern Samar.
“Statistics is an important field because it helps us understand the general trends and patterns in each data set. It can be used for analyzing data and drawing conclusions from it. It can also be used for making predictions about future events and behaviors,” Tiopes added.
She explained that aside from knowing the demographics of tourists, tourism statistics could help in designing strategies so local government units could better market their products, as well as in measuring whether a policy is effective or not.
The DOT expects a significant increase in tourist arrivals in 2022 and this year, largely due to more relaxed travel restrictions after the pandemic. (PNA)
