LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines - Albay expects enormous economic benefits, both in terms of revenue and job generation, from hosting some meetings of the 2015 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit. This city in the southern part of the Philippines main island of Luzon will host the Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting (ISOM) on December 8 and 9. The ISOM is a big event in itself, kicking off the 2015 APEC Summit in the Philippines. The event sets the tone for a year of almost 100 meetings across Clark, Cebu, Iloilo and Manila, culminating in the Leaders Summit in November next year. Albay Governor Joey Sarte Salceda said the branding and bragging rights as APEC host alone will easily translate to P120 million in the short term and five times more, or about P600 million, in the long term. “Our trade secrets are first, our obsession with preparations and culture of preparedness, and strong social cohesion,” said Salceda. Preparations for the ISOM alone has created at least 389 jobs and increased tourism arrivals by about 2,000. These are expected to accelerate to 2,000 incremental jobs and 10,000 incremental tourists over a five-year period. The ISOM will be attended by at least 450 delegates, bigger than the crowd of the World Tourism Organization, two conferences of which Albay also hosted last May, and remain the subject of chit-chat in tourism circles these days. Salceda said Albay is banking on its comparative advantages in natural endowments and visual resources, its history and culture, its world-renown reputation in disaster risk reduction management, its unique and exotic indigenous culinaria, and its warm hospitality that are being put to use to ensure the success of the Philippines hosting of the APEC Summit. The APEC hosting will be a good opportunity “to show our best practices in safety, business continuity, permanent evacuation centers and permanent relocation, and a chance to show our green credential -- 88 percent increase in forest cover and expansion of our mangrove areas by three timed in six years, no smoking, no plastics and no mining -- essentially, a people living in harmony with nature and with its future, Salceda said. For next months ISOM hosting, Albay will showcase its unique Philippine countryside culture in music and dance to be participated in by at least 1,000 Rondalla, dance and chorale artists. There will be no Imeldific edifices, Salceda said, referring to the grandiose structures reminiscent of the reign of then First Lady Imelda Marcos. He however promised efficient convention management with surgical precision to be achieved from continuous coordination and planning, drills, simulation and virtually every conceivable motion.” The only new structure Albay has for ISOM is the P40-million airport lounge built by Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines. More important than the platform for international and national projection is that the ISOM “will unlock our tourism potentials and build our brand franchise as a distinctive ecotourism destination with green credentials, he said.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 09:19:02 +0000