AGRI-TOURISM MASTER PLAN (Year 2006-2020)

3.0 PLANNING FRAMEWORK FOR AGRI-TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

The Government's Policy is to promote sustainable tourism development that maximizes socio-economic contribution, conserves the environment, instill pride in culture and heritage, and foster partnership among stakeholders towards a resilient and competitive industry - as manifested in the National Tourism Action Plan for 2004 -2010. The Regional Tourism Master Plan of Eastern Visayas also include Biliran province as one of the tourist destinations in the region.

Policies and investment programs are compiled in these documents, which lay out the basis of a strategy to accelerate sector development through mobilization of resources between the government at all levels (National and Local) and the private sector. The guiding principles set in the aforementioned development plans are sustained agricultural development, environmental protection, people participation, accelerated information technology applications and economic stability.

The formulation of the Provincial Agri-tourism Master Plan of Biliran give emphasis on the national and regional tourism policies and strategies while integrating policy and strategy inputs on agricultural initiatives.


3.1 Sector Objectives

1. Increase tourists visiting the province
2. Spread the benefits of agri-tourism in the rural areas, provide more employment opportunities, access to infrastructure facilities and alleviation of poverty.
3. Develop and establish a flexible Agri-tourism organizational structure at the local level that is responsive to the current and future needs of the sector and the industry in general.
4. Institutionalize the public-private sector participation in planning and development of Agri-tourism in the province.
5. Intensify agricultural development activities & programs to capture tourists interest.
6. To develop the capabilities of the LGU, private partners and stakeholders in the areas of planning, management, regulations and development, etc.

3.2 Current Sector Policies & Strategies

1. Full private-sector participation is encourage to bring into the sector business principles and practices and provide capital to accelerate social and economic development.
2. An integrated Agri-tourism sectoral strategy has been adopted combining agricultural development initiatives to regular tourism programs. The objective is to undertake agricultural programs/projects having a quality tourism experiences while preserving the environment, the culture and heritage of the local communities.
3. Improve access and other infrastructures in support to the development of agriculture and tourism.
4. Encourage investment in small and medium enterprise
5. Develop among Biliranons a sense of responsibility and accountability for a clean, safe, secure and tourist friendly environment.
6. Formulate and implement tourism human resources development plan to raise the service quality and productivity levels.

3.3 Targets

Given the Province's Agri-Tourism development policy as well as the strategies the target shall be:

1. Increase productivity of key agricultural products through diversified farming technology
2. Increase tourist arrivals in the province
3. Increase SMEs activities
4. Increase employment opportunities

In the medium to long term the target in the agri-tourism sector are the following;

1. expand the number of micro, small and medium agri-tourism enterprises
2. expand and improve the government earnings, inter-agency linkages and employment generation in the rural areas

3.4 Major Legislation and Regulation Affecting the Sector

The Local government Code of 1991 mandates that the planning, development and management of tourism is the responsibility of the local government units (provincial, city and municipality)

The integration of agriculture with tourism is not a new idea, the tourism sector from the very start has already established linkages with the other sectors of the economy such as agriculture, transportation, construction, manufacturing, food processing, real estate and the financial services sector. The infrastructure support services are served by the National government Agencies (NGA's) such as DPWH, DOTC, DENR, etc.)

3.5 Planning Principles

The Provincial Agri-tourism Development Master Plan shall be prepared to ensure that the sector investments are optimize under the constraints of funds as well as the planning capability of the Local Government Units, partner agencies and stakeholders. The overviews of the plan will be progressively adjusted and refined at different detailed implementation stage. The plan is considered to be flexible, concise and simple as possible to respond to the changing socio-economic condition of the province and the updated policy of the National and Local Governments allows its periodic upgrading.