Lantern Parade in Manila with foreign participation, as a spin-off from the Giant Lantern Festival.
The Philippine Tourism Highway program, featuring the familiar Pan-Philippine Highway, is anchored by domestic tourism promotion and the development of the countryside and its highways for international packaging. Mr. Ian Foster, a Hong Kong based architect, is traveling cross-country this month on a motorbike to promote the Philippine Tourism Highway in the Asian market.
Featured in the Philippine Tourism Highway is the Summer Caravan, which is being developed and marketed for international participation. It is a series of tours from the city to regional destinations by motor vehicle. Participants in their private vehicles travel together in motorcade style to designated destinations for sightseeing, dining and shopping, with marshalls providing guidance and security, and local guides giving information and direction.
Another feature of the program is the pilgrimage tours in caravan-style, which have been developed to enjoin both Moslems and local and foreign Marian devotees to visit the country's historical and cultural pilgrimage sites. It may interest you to note that Lorenzo Ruiz and his Japanese compainons became martyrs in Japan. He is the country's first saint, venerated by Filipinos and Japanese alike.
Dream Vacations For Sale is a travel and sales promotional program that features attractively-priced tour packages of the country's Top 25 destinations by tour operators. This program is intended to extend beyond our shores for promotion to the international market.
Cultural Heritage Promotions
Cognizant of the need to preserve, conserve and restore the rich cultural heritage of the Philippines, the Department of Tourism has embarked on programs for the preservation and restoration of heritage sites and increasing the level of cultural awareness among the people. Heritage sites, both natural and man-made, have always been magnets of travel. Tourism and heritage complement and enrich one another. The Philippines is now meeting the demand for cultural tourism, now a global trend.
Heritage Villages
Vigan, located in the western coast of Northern Luzon, is the only surviving colonial town in the Philippines.
Its unique architecture is distinctly Filipino, but with a blend of European, Latin American and Asian influences. There are more than 190 surviving and irreplaceable ancestral houses, religious structures and historical landmarks representing the artistic and technological achievements of the 18th and 19th century native artisans, who developed a regional architectural style adapted to the earthquake-prone tropics and which is reflected in their indigenous art.
Executive Order No. 358 created a Presidential Commission for the restoration, conservation and preservation of the Vigan Heritage Village and Tourism Complex and was proclaimed by the national leadership in support of this laudable program by the Department.
The Commission is composed of various government agencies, a municipality and province, and representatives from the private sector. The Commission is chaired by the Secretary of Tourism with Governor of the Province of Ilocos Sur as co-chair. It is assigned to prepare the detailed Master Plan of Vigan and provide over-all direction and coordination in the planning and monitoring of all program/project components and development activities.
The restorations of Taal Heritage Village in the province of Batangas and the Baclayon Church in the province of Bohol, (one hour from Cebu City by high-speed ferry) are other DOT culture-oriented ongoing projects.
Ifugao Terrace
The Ifugaos are best known as the builders of the world-famous rice terraces, considered as the "Eighth Wonder of the World." It is also known as "Asia's greatest civilization." The rice terraces are estimated to have been built over 2,000 years ago and if placed end to end, they would span half the circumference of the globe. What is truly remarkable about the Ifugao rice terraces is that these great agricultural engineering structures were built without central authority and without slave labor.
The annual cultivation of the terraces constitutes a symbolic relationship between the culture and agricultural practices of the Ifugaos. The terraces have survived for many centuries because of its tradition.
The rice terraces in Ifugao were inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List as a living cultural landscape and they are the only terraces in the whole world that represent the four (4) types of rice terracing.
In order to preserve this cultural heritage for future generations, the Ifugao Terraces Commission was created and is mandated to work towards the restoration and preservation of the rice terraces.
Recent figures reflect 29.86% growth rate in foreign visitors in the region which is largely attributed to the Ifugao Rice Terraces and Baguio City of the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR).
Domestic development of destinations for international promotion & marketing
To date, more and more destinations are being developed for sustained international marketing efforts. The most recent is the BIMP-EAGA.
Mindanao is the second largest island in the Philippines,
