The Department of Tourism (DOT), in partnership with Go Negosyo, will be holding the first ever Tourism Summit this year at SM Seaside City, Cebu on May 6.
The island province of Cebu will be the pioneering location for the event, which aims to provide networking opportunities for the tourism industry stakeholders, as well as mentoring discussions and other exciting activities.
“We recognize that while we have an array of tourism products and service, our people, remain our best asset. Training and development programs provide a host of benefits and this collaboration between the DOT and Go Negosyo is a testament to the commitment of the Department to provide more learning opportunities and later generate jobs for our tourism stakeholders. MSMEs make up a large component in the tourism value chain and the capacitating them is a priority of the Department,” Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said.
In January this year, Secretary Frasco and ASEAN Business Advisory Council Philippines chair Joey Concepcion, also the founder of the non-profit organization Go Negosyo which advocates for Philippine entrepreneurship engaged in a meeting.
In that meeting, the tourism chief identified that the capability to market tourist offerings as one of the most important training sessions needed in the tourism industry, thereby noting that the DOT is open to the expertise of the mentors of the entrepreneurship advocacy group.
Both leaders also discussed their collaborative ventures on how the tourism industry will recover from the setbacks of the pandemic in terms of strengthening tourism-related activities for the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Since 2016, Go Negosyo has mentored 12,100 entrepreneurs, to which Frasco commended the idea of training tourism stakeholders through the 3M (money, market, and mentorship) on wheels and its mall-based mentoring program.
On the DOT’s side, the tourism chief said the Department has set an ambitious goal this year by training 100,000 tourism workforce across all 16 regions in the country.
