A lot of people want to invest in Eastern Visayas. I personally know some of them who work abroad, some are “locals”. I have often suggested that they invest in tourism.

The national government is promoting tourism as the main strategy for developing Central Philippines. As a strategy, this will be the focus of government and private investments in Eastern Visayas.

With the publicity that our tourist spots are getting such as those on the surfing competition in Calicoan, Guiuan, Eastern Samar, we can expect more private sector investments to come in.

As reported by the Department of Tourism, the numbers of tourists coming to Eastern Visayas has been increasing in recent years. Just recently comparing January to March with April to June data, there was an increase by 21.6 percent, from 47,000 to 58,000.

Promoting tourism is not confined to building beach resorts, hotels, and developing scenic spots.

Certainly such investments require capital inflows in other fields such as in education (to produce Hotel and Restaurant Management graduates who can improve services), in health (making sure that the health needs of tourists are attended to), in food production (so that food production is adequate and up to standard to support the food requirements of tourists), and in handicrafts (to produce quality souvenir items such as bags and slippers from abaca and mats from tikog).

The beauty of tourism is not only on the sights tourists see. From an economic point of view, it also refers to the “multiplier” effects of tourism as cited above.

Investing in tourism is, indeed, a beautiful strategy.