Last 8 days to enter Best Tourism Village search in CAR
BAGUIO CITY — The search for the best tourism village in the region will end on December 23, 2022, according to the Department of Tourism-Cordillera (DOT-CAR) during the event launching over the weekend.
The Search for the Best Tourism Village Competition and Award, the first of its kind in the region, is being organized by DOT-CAR headed by Director Jovita Ganongan.
Ganongan said the search is in recognition of the important role of tourism villages towards ushering in a more sustainable, responsible, equitable, and participatory rural tourism development, and an awarding activity for villages embracing tourism to provide opportunity and drive sustainable development.
“In this noble intention to recognize communities, it is our fervent hope to instill a culture of tourism that will pave the way for a paradigm shift among all of us in the public and private sectors and to change how we phrase tourism, to care more about our culture and heritage, our traditional knowledge, our environment, and most especially our people as part of the tourism value chain,” Ganongan said.
The competition will feature tourism villages from around the Cordillera Administrative Region covering the provinces of Abra, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, Mountain Province, and Apayao.
“Our innate quality or uniqueness lies really on where you can find people in a space practicing their way of life. You find them in the villages, not outside of the villages. We want to encourage them to develop their areas, to make them ready for tourism. In that way, we can be able to develop village circuits for tourism immersion or other cordillera unique experiences that we can be able to promote and propagate,” Ganongan added.
The search began last November 22, 2022 and will continue until December 23, 2022.
It is open to all existing and emerging tourism villages in CAR that meet the eligibility criteria, which can be found on the social media pages of DOT-CAR as well as on their website.
Applicants will be evaluated by a Screening Committee. Qualified applicants will be notified by DOT-CAR and a team will come for a physical visit for validation.
Application forms are available in all Provincial Tourism Offices and Municipal Tourism Offices of all LGUs throughout the region.
Application Forms may also be downloaded from https://bit.ly/BestTourismVillageSearch
“We encourage all eligible villages to enter before the deadline on December 23,” Ganongan said.
Entries will be judged according to the following criteria:
•Sustainable Management- 25%;
•Socio-Economic Sustainability- 15%;
•Cultural Sustainability- 25%;
•Environmental Sustainability – 10%; and
•Rural Economic Development – 25%
The winners of the competition will be announced during the awarding ceremonies on January 2023 which will be held in a hybrid format—a fusion of face-to-face or physical meeting and an online digital platform.
Winning entries will be awarded the following cash incentives (subject to applicable government tax/es):
•First Place: Php 1,000,000.00 plus trophy and token
•Second Place: Php 500,000.00 plus trophy and token
•Third Place: Php 200,000.00 plus trophy and token
•Runners-Up (5 entries): Php 100,000.00 plus certificates and tokens
Ganongan prefers to call the rewards as cash incentives, for the reason that, “These are actually incentives or financial assistance that can help them sustain what they have started in their own villages or areas.”
“Let’s help one another so that through this program, we can motivate them to come out into the open and be able to stir travel and lure visitors to come and create demand for businesses that would help generate employment within the villages, communities or the province as a whole,” Ganongan added.
“Ang pinaka-importante sa lahat ay malaman na meron tayong ganitong incentivized program for tourism development,” Ganongan said.###
