The city government tied up once again with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to come up with an action plan for the development of Catbalogan’s local tourism.

Entitled Value Chain Workshop, the whole day session was conducted to find out the current state of the local tourism – which are its strengths and which areas the city needs to improve on.

With varied participants such as business owners and managers, media, school officials, police, and national government agency representatives, the workshop aims to identify a particular role for each sector in the promotion of tourism.

One of the activities undertaken during the workshop was the tourism audit where places, events and other things that are potential tourist drawers were listed. Although most of the sites – identified mostly by the barangay chairmen and local tourist guide Joni Bonifacio – were still unheard of, they are believed to be potential tourist attractions if promoted properly.

The site inventory has resulted to the discovery of 9 islands, 5 beaches, 3 rivers, 4 caves and 10 falls/cove/mangroves. The gathering was also able to list down 9 natural events, 20 cultural events and 25 local delicacies.
The major output that came out of this activity was the finalized action plan that envisions Catbalogan City to be a premier tourist destination that is “investor-friendly, economically progressive, equitable, participatory, sustainable, and with a good gender balance in the development process” by the year 2011.

The creation of a Comprehensive Tourism Master Plan, the establishment of the Tourism Investment Promotions Office (TIPO) and the formulation of a Tourism Investment Code are among the concrete steps that were identified to be able to attain this vision.

By the same year, the city also aims to increase business opportunities by 15%, employment by 20%, foreign tourist arrivals by 100 %, local tourist arrivals by 40% and the local income by 20%.