DAVAO City flights, hotel and accommodations were fully-booked from November 15 to 19, as the city hosted three national conventions gathering nearly 9,000 tourists and visitors from across the country.
The three conventions were the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers Convention in SMX Convention Center, League of Cities convention in Marco Polo-Davao and CFC-Handmaids of the Lord and the Rest of the World conference in The Ritz Hotel with 8000, 500 and 400 participants, respectively.
“I'd like to thank, the organizers for bringing their conventions to Davao. It goes to show that they as well as their participants vouch for the peace and order in the city as well as the services that Dabawenyos can give to their guests,” City Tourism officer Gene Rose Tecson said in a text message.
Department of Tourism (DOT) Assistant Secretary (Asec) Eden David, in a separate interview, said last week’s outcome was a big boost to the city’s push in becoming a meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (Mice) destination in the country.
“We are looking forward to this week for the Philippine Councilors League convention,” David said.
Other upcoming conventions set are Philippine Librarians Association Convention on November 22-25 with 600 delegates and Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants National Convention on November 24-26 with 5000 delegates.
Mice-Davao Executive Committee (Execom) secretary Marilou Ampuan said that all the three recently-held conventions availed the Mice incentives offered by the city.
Tecson added that with the growing interest of organizers, both local and international, recognizing Davao as a Mice destination, Davao's tourism sector will continue on improving and upgrading its services to better cater to the needs of the city’s guests.
This, as echoed by DOT Asec, saying the city really need to bank on improving and upgrading its services and facilitate more tourism-related investments.
Kennedy Kapulong, chair of Mice-Davao Execom earlier said, the city has an average of one meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions every month availing of the Mice Davao Program, strengthening its position as a most-preferred Mice destination in the country.
"We can attribute this achievement to our intensified efforts of promoting and marketing our program. We went around the country, participated numerous expos and gatherings just to promote the Mice Davao Program to lure more tourists in the city," he said.
He added that President Rodrigo Duterte's election to the highest post in the country has contributed to the increasing numbers of organizers availing of the program.
Moving forward to 2017 and beyond, Kapulong said, they intend to double the monthly average of events availing the program.
He said they are now looking not just for local events by also for international events to be hosted in the city.
From January to October this year, Mice-Davao has assisted a total of eight events including the 83rd PVMA Scientific Conference and Annual Convention, 10th PHALGA: Mindanao Geographical Conference, BIMP-EAGA International Halal Congress: An Academe Perspective, Daughters of Mary Immaculate International Biennial Conference, Ureka Project Forum, Cocolink 2016-International Coconut Conference, KakaoKonek-Cacao Conference and National Coffee Summit.
To further invite more Mice events in Davao City, the execom launched last month the enhanced Mice Program Incentives 2017 to 2018 with better discounts and benefits.
The program comes in three incentive packages. For Incentive A (300 to 999 participants), basic incentives include use of the DOT information Counters at the Francisco Bangoy International Airport, airport reception (welcome dancers and welcome tarpaulin) on the arrival date (bulk arrival) of the delegates in Francisco Bangoy International Airport, welcome kits and leis, assistance by Davao City Tourism Office for the issuance of permits for welcome banners/streamers, special MICE accommodation rates from DOT-accredited hotels and resorts, special Mice airline group rate from Air Asia and Cebu Pacific, incentive discount per transportation booking with Mabuhay Car Rentals, incentive discounts from Abreeza Ayala Mall and SM Lanang Premier participating outlets, incentive discount from participating wellness and spa centers of Davao Wellness Association and discount from participating stores of Pasalubong Center.
While for events with over 1,000 participants, organizers can enjoy basic incentives plus complimentary meeting room at SMX Convention Center, hosted Familiarization Tour for the inspection team for three days and 2 nights.
For 2,000 and above participants, apart from the basic and additional incentives, they can also have a discount on rental fee of the function room in SMX Convention Center.
