Cebu & Sports Tourism

Cebu will always be known as a top destination for tourism, both local and foreign. The perfect mix of a laid back lifestyle, the heritage of the Sto. Niño, the business-friendly atmosphere, the manageable traffic and a chance to hit the beach on short notice has drawn many to this "island in the Pacific."

All these have made Cebu a popular "must go to" place in the country. We have thousands of tourists coming over for their annual break to hit the beach and get a chance to know Cebu's heritage. Recent trends have seen the tourism industry go into language/educational and medical tourism. Koreans come over to stay in Cebu for a long time with the purpose of learning English, thus the sprouting of English schools and Korean stores. Others come over for their medical examinations since it's getting to be too expensive in their home countries.

Amidst these latest trends, there's another huge potential for the tourism industry that's ripe for growth. For the lack of any technical term, let's call it sports tourism. It's nothing really new to Cebu. But it hasn't really been exploited or fully maximized. While it's common to have athletes from other places visit Cebu for tournaments, all these have been organized independent of each other. All these tournaments took place without any grand scheme or a mother plan of sports tourism events.

In the past month, we already had two Manila-based basketball teams in Ateneo de Manila and the College of St. Benilde coming over for a short tournament.

Football also saw the arrival of teams from Leyte, Bacolod and Dumaguete at the recent Cebu Inter Club tournament. At today's GTZ World Cup Football Festival, two teams from the Ateneo de Manila University will be playing in the Players 10-1996 age group.

The PBA had an out of town game yesterday at the Mandaue Sports and Cultural Sports Complex featuring Air 21 and Barangay Ginebra. Tennis had its summer age group tournaments like the Gullas Cup that featured visitors from other places.

If all these activities took place "on their own," you can already imagine the kind of impact it would generate if all these had been organized under a mother sports tourism plan.

Just like the other "types" of tourism, the ripple effects of sports activities to the local economy is tremendous. This is where the already strong services sector gets to be even stronger.

I'd like to take the visit of the two Ateneo boys football teams as an example since I'm personally involved in organizing the trip, primarily as a host. They boys and their parents are here from May 18-22. That's four nights of stay at a local hotel. Since they're scheduled to play games against Don Bosco and Sacred Heard School Jesuit in these schools' campuses, they'll need to move around and have rented a bus of a local rent a car transpo company. A city tour will also be considered during a break. And a trip to the beach is almost a given in a trip like this.

They'll surely get hungry a will need to eat somewhere for their meals. I'm certain they'll be paying a visit to the top local restaurants that aren't present in Manila. I mean why go to a popular fastfood restaurant in Cebu when it can also be found in Manila serving exactly the same type of food?

Cebu's local retailers will get a big lift as the visitors will surely look for souvenirs. There has got to be a trip to visit the Sto. Niño and Magellan's Cross. And we can't forget the danggit in Taboan. You can also bet that by the time they go home, they would have bought a Cebu t-shirt.

All of these activities are almost automatic for any sports or tourism activity, and this is where Cebu's tourism industry gets a big kick. In fact, this is true for any type of tourism activity.

A great thing to have is a well-charted calendar of sports activities that will guaranty a constant stream of sports events all year-round. It doesn't have to be a formal arrangement. All it needs is coordination among the local sporting industry's players so that everything runs smoothly and doesn't get into conflict with each other. The best example for this was how the entire Cebu worked together for the Southeast Asian Games last year.

Another must is excellent sports infrastructure. There's a need for good quality sports venues in all major sports events, from athletics to basketball, football and baseball. This is where we might be getting a failing grade. With a united front supported by quality sports infrastructure, there's nowhere to go but up.

There is no question that the local sports industry is enjoying one of its finest moments post-SEAG, but we can't just sit on our achievements. Wouldn't it be great if we can pick up from where we left off and take off to make Cebu the sports tourism capital of the country?

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Time-out: Happy birthday to David de Guzman of the Ateneo football team

You can reach me at [email protected] Bleacher Talk in http://bleachertalk.blogspot.com