SOME 374 accommodation establishments in Baguio City, including transient houses and homestays, have received certificates of accreditation or certificate of compliance from the Department of Tourism-Cordillera (DOT-CAR) to date, said Alec Mapalo, head of the City Tourism Office, on Wednesday.
However, even with ongoing efforts to continue regular ocular inspections for accommodation establishments in the city alongside the DOT-CAR, only a portion of the more than 1,000 transient houses alone in the city have been accredited.
Accreditation proves that the establishment has been inspected and found compliant with basic health and safety protocols, proving them fit for use, particularly for tourists.
With Baguio having reopened to tourist activity, in particular for tourists from the National Capital Region (NCR) plus bubble, the city is moving to continue inspecting and accrediting accommodation establishments as part of the effort to revive the tourism industry.
Mapalo previously said that tourism, hit hard by the restrictions on accommodation establishments and tourists alike in the early part of the year, has slowly started recovering, especially after NCR+ tourists were allowed to travel once again in June.
The major uptick came when the restrictions on the NCR+ area’s leisure travelers were eased, with the first two weeks of June alone seeing 4,378 tourists compared to some 2,669 tourists for April and May combined.
“That simply means that our traditional market is the NCR+ areas. The regions that we most have tourists from are Region 3, and Region 4A,” Mapalo said.
