A workshop on sustainable tourism in Central Visayas towards proposing studies on three areas of sustainable tourism was held last November 21, 2018 at room 169 of the AS Building of UP Cebu. The participants in the workshop were faculty members from thee colleges of UP Cebu, namely: College of Communication, Art & Design, College of Social Science, and College of Science. From the College of Communication, Art & Design, the three faculty members who were present were Dr. Jocelyn Pinzon, Prof. Palmy Tudtud, and Prof. Jay Jore. From the College of Social Science, only Prof. Mae Claire Jabines was present. The most number of participants were from the College of Science, namely: Dr. Florence Evacitas, Dr. Hazel Arceo, Prof. Demelo Lao, Prof. Kenneth Bureros, and Prof. Dexcem Pantinople.

Three groups were formed to come up with three study proposals on sustainable tourism according to their foci of study. The Science faculty, led by Dr. Florence Evacitas, conceptualized a research proposal on ecotourism; the second study, led by Prof. Claire Jabines, conceptualized a study on the sociocultural and economic impacts of tourism; and the third group, led by Prof. Jay Jore, conceptualized a proposal on art tourism. The three groups agreed with each other to focus on Cebu for year 2019 and to focus on other places in Central Visayas like Bohol, Negros Oriental, and Siquijor in year 2020 and beyond.

Three study proposals came out of the workshop as the three groups developed these into full-blown proposals which CVSC submitted to the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies. The study proposals deal with three aspects of sustainable tourism, namely:

  1. environmental sustainability, corresponding to Study Proposal 1 with the title “Making Nature Tourism Sustainable: Assessing the Vulnerability, Resilience, Limit of Acceptable Change of Nature Tourism Sites in Central Visayas”. Its study leader is Dr. Florence Evacitas, Chair of the UP Cebu Department of Biology and Environmental Science.
  2. sociocultural and economic sustainability of tourism in Cebu, corresponding to Study Proposal 2 with the title “Assessing the Socio-Cultural and Economic Impacts of Tourism in Central Visayas”. Its study leader is Prof. Mae Claire Jabines of the College of Social Sciences. Prof. Jabines’ line of scholarship and publications is on tourism.
  3. cultural tourism, specifically on the topic of art tourism, corresponding to Study Proposal 3 having the title “Mapping and Assessing Cebu’s Potentials as an Art Tourism Destination”. Its study leader is Prof. Jay Jore, a Fine Arts – Product Design professor who is currently the Coordinator of the Fine Arts Program.

For 2019, the three study proposals will focus on Cebu City and Province. For the succeeding years (2020 and above), the study proposals will focus on other cities and provinces in Central Visayas aside from Cebu such as Bohol, Negros Oriental, and Siquijor. The deliverable outputs for this year (2019) are three discussion papers (one from each study) and three policy briefs (one from each study).

Original article on CVSC website