Cultural mapping can boost tourism, preserve local heritage

By John Noel E. Herrera

All Local Government Units (LGUs) in Iloilo province are now being pushed to hold cultural mapping sessions to boost the tourism industry and strengthen the heritage and culture conservation efforts of the province.

In a regular session on Tuesday, Feb 21, 2023, the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) of Iloilo approved on third and final reading the proposed provincial ordinance mandating all LGUs to conduct tourism, cultural heritage and property identification, and data collection.

“The enactment of this ordinance will mandate the LGUs to conduct their identification, collection, monitoring, and reporting of tourism areas, tourism enterprises, and local heritage and cultural properties that will be collated by the Iloilo Provincial Tourism Office (PTO) to support the updating of tourism development plans, programs, and projects in the revival, protection, and promotion of the tourism sector in the province,” part of the ordinance read.

The ordinance added that the pandemic has affected the tourism industry in the province “and there is a need to set up stronger and better statistical reporting in the tourism sector – starting with the identification, collection, monitoring, reporting of tourism areas, tourism enterprises, and local heritage and cultural properties.”

Fifth District Board Member Binky Tupas, who authored the ordinance, said that LGUs need to identify and collect data of their cultural properties for protection and preservation as tourism is one of the economic drivers of the province.

The Iloilo Provincial Government will also allot P4 million from the annual budget of the current year and the year thereafter for three years for the implementation of the program.

The IPTO, on the other hand, will prepare the necessary forms needed for the reporting and data collection and will spearhead all training activities and procurement of logistical and technological requirements as all the LGUs are required to submit their reports on the fifth day after each reference quarter.

Meanwhile, PTO head Bombit Marin, noted that the program would boost the tourism industry in the province and help them finalize the list of cultural properties to be submitted to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), as LGUs are now pushed to conduct their own mapping and would not just depend to the provincial office.

“Right now we have 144 approved by NCCA cultural properties last year, but we’re going to present another batch of 150 cultural properties in March 2023, and right now we are still doing all the templates and hoping to be approved,” Marin said in an interview.

He also shared that even before the ordinance was passed, the PTO had already conducted training for tourism officers on the technicalities of cultural mapping and even planning development workshops, but only a few submitted their tourism development plans.

“We normally conduct tourism planning development workshops, creating tourism development plans for municipalities. As of this year, we only have 15 towns that have their own tourism development plans,” Marin said.