The highland Cordillera region in the Philippines is offering various attractions for travellers to suit different tastes and preferences.
The importance of the region and the various options that it has to offer were recently highlighted in the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Travel Mart 2012 event, which drew foreign travel agencies from various countries. Travel agents from different nations said that they were looking to bring more customers from their respective countries to the Cordillera region to explore the various attractions that the region had to offer.
Purificacion Molintas, director of the Department of Tourism, said that agencies from nations such as Zimbabwe, France, Greece, China and the Middle East were looking to bring more tourists to the region. Molintas said that the Cordillera region had different attractions that suited different nationalities. For example, the French preferred to enjoy long vacations at the Baguio-Sagada-Banaue areas, while the Greeks were interested in exploring cultural and art offerings that the region had to offer. Local arts and crafts, including handicrafts, woodcarvings and paintings by local artists, were therefore a hit with the Greeks. The Chinese are not specific and prefer to mix business with travel, and were found to be mostly free and independent travellers who were interested in sports activities. Tourists from the Middle East usually prefer the cold and wet weather in the region, particularly in Baguio City and Sagada town in Mt. Province. Molintas said that the region had enough potential to cater to all of these diverse needs.
The recent PATA Travel Mart 2012 is an annual travel trade event, and over the years has attracted hundreds of international buyers and sellers of tourism products and services from all over the globe.
