Deputy Executive Director Eleazar E. Ricote of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center shared how PPPs can be a tool in pursuing tourism development during the Capacity Building on Project for the Department of Tourism (DOT) and its Development Partners workshop held at Baguio City from January 23-26, 2023.

The workshop is the second part of a training series designed to equip participating LGUs, DOT Offices, and their attached agencies with the skills to package viable tourism-related project proposals anchored on local development plans to facilitate sustainable, inclusive, and resilient development.

Specifically, this phase of the series focused on exploring potential project financing modalities, project management concepts, and monitoring and evaluation practices.

Attendees came from the Tourism Offices of the Provinces of Nueva Vizcaya, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan, Rizal, Zambales, and Quezon. Participants from the Tourism Offices of Baguio City, and the Municipality of Sagada also attended the event.

Mr. Ricote emphasized how PPPs can work to create synergy within the tourism infrastructure plans of both the DOT and local governments.

“Tourism infrastructure development and promotions are among the functions and services fully devolved to provinces under EO 138, following the Garcia-Mandanas ruling. We applaud the Department of Tourism for mounting a series of project development training workshops for all provinces. Most importantly, we thank DOT for acknowledging and featuring PPP in these workshops, as a real option in the financing and implementation of these tourism projects,” says the Deputy Executive Director