NAGA CITY – This city’s aggressive campaign to step up tourism promotions finally paid off when it registered the highest number of tourism arrivals in Bicol, outclassing for the first time perennial frontrunner Legazpi City for the period January to June, this year.

        Based on the latest preliminary report on the regional distribution of travelers in Bicol prepared by the regional office of the Department of Tourism based in Legazpi City, tourist arrivals for Naga and Camarines Sur reached 115,728 compared to Legazpi and Albay’s 81,041, or a difference of 34,687 during the first six months of the year which included the peak summer months.

        Naga City/Camarines Sur’s increase in tourist arrivals is a remarkable 88.50% from last year’s 6-month performance which stood at only 61,361. During the same period last year, Legazpi/Albay posted a total of 90,809 tourists, both domestic and foreign.

        On this year’s performance, Legazpi/Albay’s performance went down to 81,041, or a dip of approximately 6%.

        Naga’s tourist arrival performance, on the other hand, has been consistently going upward during the last 5 years, DOT records show. Eight years ago, in 1998, visitor arrival in Naga was reported at only 50,406. It leap frogged to 135,599 in 2004 and to 144,252 in 2005. Comparatively, Albay/Legazpi was on top with 152,557 in 2004, and 160,185 in 2005.

        Data on visitor arrivals are distributed by provinces with their prime cities as billeting hubs where hotels and inns are concentrated. Interestingly, for this year’s first six months report, Iriga was treated separately from Naga/Camarines Sur. From January to June 2006, Iriga City posted a total number of 9,970 tourists, 6,308 of them foreign. Iriga during that period hosted a congress for homecoming Rinconada-born Fil-Am nurses and OFW medical practitioners, hence the bigger number of tourist arrivals.

        Tourist arrivals in each city and province are based on the registry books of the different hotels, resorts, inns, lodging houses and accredited billeting centers. This means that visitors who go directly to private homes of friends and relatives are not considered or inputted in the monitoring of arrivals, except when reported officially by the respective local government units.

        Tourism officials attributed Naga’s consistent upward performance to the city government’s active intervention to host various regional, national and even international conventions and events and bring in delegates and participants to at least a 2-day stay in the city’s hotels. The city’s determined bid to bring in quality bulk visitors has become in a way the lifeblood of the city’s burgeoning hotel industry, a member of the Metro Naga Chamber of Commerce and Industry conceded. He said this is an ideal set-up for an LGU-private sector partnership in the advancement of commerce and trade with tourism as the stimulating force.

        There are now 16 standard hotels in the city whose amenities and services are comparable with those in bigger cities, with one more along the storied Naga River expected to open next month.

        Last May 7-13, Naga City was host to some 8,465 athletes and delegates in the 2006 Palarong Pambansa. It was estimated that these athletes, delegates and other guests spent a total of P50M to P60M during their weeklong stay in Naga. Moreover, Naga has been a favorite destination for Lakbay-Aral (study tours) by both LGUs and academic institutions that come to study and observe up-close Naga’s award-winning governance programs and practices. For this purpose, participants, especially local government officials and department heads from as far as Ilocos to Surigao stay in the local hotels for at least a night and two days.

        Meanwhile, the province with the third highest number of tourist arrivals, according to the same report during the period covered for this year, is Camarines Norte with 39,089. It is closely followed by Sorsogon with 38,054, thanks to its foreign-tourist-drawing Butanding, or whale shark eco-tourism interaction.

        Observers say that Legazpi/Albay may catch up to regain its top honor in the second half of the year due mainly to the influx of tourists, foreign and domestic, who continue to come in droves to watch the spectacle of impending Mt. Mayon eruption.