DARAGA, Albay—Gov. Joey S. Salceda has expressed confidence Albay will reach its prime goal of 5 million tourists in 2025, $1-billion investments and 235,000 jobs in 10 years, when the construction of the Bicol International Airport (BIA) hits its new deadline of August 2018.
The government is set to inaugurate by the end of April the newly completed runway and break ground for the airport terminal, located at Barangay Alobo in this town, following a series of hitches.
Salceda has “relentlessly” worked for completion of the BIA, his brainchild, as chairman of the Bicol Regional Development Council for nine years. The proposed airport is envisioned to open the floodgates for international tourism in Southern Luzon and contribute significantly to the country’s economic development.
“The completion of the international airport, the only international gateway south of Manila in Luzon augurs well for the tourism prospects of Albay, the Almasor [Albay-Masbate-Sorsogon Tourism Alliance] and Bicolandia,” Salceda said.
Albay has been declared by the Department of Tourism (DOT) as a “tourism powerhouse,” and the hottest and fastest growing destination in the country. It recently won the Pacific Asia Travel Association CEO Challenge as a new global frontiers destination, and earned the branding assistance of Trip Advisor, a globally known travel marketing group.
The province is now a Unesco World Biosphere Reserve, and its crown jewel in tourism, Mayon Volcano, tentatively listed as a World Heritage Site. Mayon will soon strike a sisterhood agreement with Mount Fuji of Japan.
For his innovation in tourism, Salceda last year received the DOT’s First Star Tourism Award. Albay has recorded a phenomenal tourism growth, from 8,700 in 2007 when Salceda assumed the governorship, to 339,000 in 2013, with 63-percent growth rate.
“We are now more confident of hitting our 2025 target of 5 million tourists, of which 1.8 million are foreign visitors. It will induce at least $1-billion investments in the next 10 years and create 235,000 jobs over 10 years,” he added.
Salceda has thanked President Aquino for helping the project push through bureaucratic processes toward a new deadline.
He said BIA is also beneficial to overseas Filipino workers, businessmen and international travelers, who are assured of ease of access, with less traffic and congestion.
Salceda said its catchment area of 8.1 million people—6.3 million in Bicol and 1.73 million in Samar—makes it the 97th-largest “country,” even larger than Israel.
By circumventing Metro Manila, BIA can reduce travel costs by P5,500. Being night-capable, the airport can further reduce costs. “This will expand our markets, afford us more access [vis-a-vis the congestion of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport] and make international traffic cost-competitive.”
BIA is also disaster risk-free, a showcase of Albay’s mastery in disaster-risk reduction (DRR) management and climate-change adaptation (CCA), for which the province is UN Global Model.
BIA is the centerpiece of the P4.4-billion Guinobatan-Camalig-Daraga-Legazpi (Guicadale) Economic Township, which is now fast taking shape. Guicadale, another pet project of Salceda, is hailed as the country’s largest and most ambitious government-initiated geostatic intervention of moving people and firms out of harm’s way into safe development communities.
Guicadale, a showcase of Green Economy concept, prides of road networks that link some 40 resettlement communities within the combined geographic areas of the municipalities of Guinobatan, Camalig, Daraga and Legazpi City that surround BIA.