Assessment of tourist destination potential of Cuyo Islands: Inputs to developing an integrated tourism development plan

Abstract

The economic benefits of tourism have spurred government officials to identify places of interest within their territorial jurisdiction and to develop a tourism development plan. Doing so requires an assessment of the tourist destination to provide relevant inputs. This paper assessed the Cuyo Islands in Palawan in terms of three tourism elements namely accessibility, accommodations, and attraction. A descriptive action research was used where 61 respondents – composed of two tourism experts, 17 Sangguniang Bayan members, 10 service providers and 32 tourists participated in the study. Primary data are derived from the survey, the semi- interview schedule, and the onsite evaluation. In terms of accessibility, Cuyo islands have been found to be moderately accessible. Accommodations and attractions are both highly available. SWOT analysis reveals that the Cuyo islands have a high potential as a tourist destination. Strategies formulated during the workshop with the stakeholders are introduction of sustainable tourism products, destination branding like kiteboarding, cultural tourism or education tourism, market penetration and increase publicity efforts by allocating a budget in advertising the island to domestic market, product developments and improve existing services by entering a public-private partnerships with telco companies and other potential investors, improvement of general image by investment into IT and online presence, and improve guest’s satisfaction through better government intervention. Inputs were made based on these findings to aid in developing the integrated tourism development plan for the Cuyo islands.