CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Local officials and tourism stakeholders in the southwestern towns of Alegria and Badian are gearing up for the reopening of one of Cebu’s most popular tourism activities.
Posts on local government’s social media pages, including the Cebu Provincial Tourism Office, showed tourism stakeholders in these localities doing some final touches in their preparations before they will undergo inspection from the Provincial Tourism Task Force.
Both Alegria and Badian have decided to set up centralized tourist arrival areas in their respective jurisdictions.
These arrival areas happen to be a one-stop-shop where guests will have to register and log important information for contact tracing purposes, have their temperatures checked and hands disinfected, and checked if they are fit to join in canyoneering.
It is also in these tourist arrival areas where canyoneering operators conduct orientations to their future visitors on what to expect in this particular type of outdoor activity under the ‘new normal’.
Canyoneering has been a popular tourism activity in the southwestern part of Cebu province.
The river where canyoneering takes place cuts across in Badian upstream before flowing downstream as Kanlaob River in Barangay Compostela, Alegria.
Except for Minglanilla, Consolacion, and Talisay City, Cebu province’s modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) status has been extended by the national government’s anti-coronavirus task force to August 31.
Under MGCQ, tourism enterprises are allowed to resume but minimum health standards should be observed.
As a result, Governor Gwendolyn Garcia issued an executive order (EO) laying down guidelines for all tourism stakeholders to follow once they start reopening.
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Cebu province has already launched the reopening of other popular tourist activities such as whale-shark watching in Oslob town, sardine run, and island-hopping in Moalboal, to name some. /dbs
