We at Palafox Associates are excited and honored to work with the City Government of Davao City through the Davao City Tourism Operations Office along with the Department of Tourism Region XI and the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority for the crafting of the Davao City Tourism Master Plan.

This endeavor aims to formulate a Tourism Master Plan for Davao City for the next 25 years. To achieve this, the team will first assess the existing situation in the City by identifying its current condition and prospects for tourism and the industry's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This will allow the team to determine and map the City’s physical, natural, built, cultural, and social resources. 

As part of Palafox’s collaborative approach, the team will conduct workshops with the City’s stakeholders to find out what their aspirations are for the city and what aspects they would like to preserve, create, or change within their community. They will also be requested to identify priority areas for development. 

There is a need to develop the visitor flow management system of Davao City, so it can be linked with the tourist destinations within the region. To achieve this, the team must first determine the immediate support infrastructure necessary for tourism development within the City and prepare an implementation program for the development of tourism products, packages, and marketing for the City. 

Among the plans to be formulated are development guidelines or restrictions, a tourism institutional plan, and a visitor impact monitoring framework to identify the carrying capacity of targeted sites.

The activities for the project are well underway. From July 16 to July 27, 2021, stakeholder consultations were conducted online with representatives from the Tourism Council, Tourism Operations and Business Organizations in Davao City, various local government agencies, and more than 50 barangays. Through this activity with various stakeholders, the development vision, tourism potential, and community aspirations at the barangay level were identified.

As the formulation of the Davao City Tourism Master Plan continues to progress, we at Palafox are grateful for the support and participation of everyone involved.