{"id":266976,"date":"2020-08-29T06:13:48","date_gmt":"2020-08-29T10:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=266976"},"modified":"2020-08-29T06:13:48","modified_gmt":"2020-08-29T10:13:48","slug":"lapu-lapu-city-to-promote-olango-islands-seaweed-ecotourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/08\/29\/lapu-lapu-city-to-promote-olango-islands-seaweed-ecotourism\/","title":{"rendered":"Lapu-Lapu City to promote Olango Islands’ seaweed ecotourism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Visitors at the Olango Island (Photo by Elmer nev valenzuela\/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LAPU-LAPU CITY<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The city government is bent on repackaging the Olango group of islands as an \u201cecotourism hub\u201d in the Visayas, featuring its fishing and seaweed farming as an added tourist attraction.<\/p>\n

Mayor Junard \u201cAhong\u201d Chan said Friday that soon after the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) relaxes the quarantine status in this island city, they would drum up their marketing strategies for Olango.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a new travel escapade for our tourists. They will not just come to Olango just to dive, snorkel, or migratory-bird watching. They will be enticed with how the residents of Olango live as fishermen and seaweed farmers,\u201d Chan told the Philippine News Agency (PNA) in an interview.<\/p>\n

He noted that tourists around the world learn about the culture of places they visit, apart from enjoying the usual attractions, spots, hotels, restaurants, and shopping centers.<\/p>\n

They are also attracted to the products grown or produced in a place, Chan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike in Olango, they will learn that the toothpaste they used, the ice cream they eat, the slippers they wear come from a product that Olagohanons are farming. And that is (the) \u2018guso\u2019 or seaweed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Olango has 11 villages, eight of which \u2013 Baring, Caw-oy, Sabang, Santa Rosa, Talima, Tingo, Tungasan, and San Vicente \u2013 straddle the main island itself.<\/p>\n

It has two satellite islets \u2013 Caohagan and Pangan-an \u2013 and another islet, Gilutongan, which is under the administrative control of the town of Cordova.<\/p>\n

The island group has been known as one of the seven flyways in the world and its 920-hectare Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary is a haven for birds migrating from Siberia, northern China, and Japan.<\/p>\n

These birds flock to the island seeking refuge from other countries\u2019 winter climate. Of the 97 species flocking to the island, 48 are migratory birds while the rest are native to the island.<\/p>\n

Chan said apart from bird-watching, tourists visit Olango to swim and snorkel in its pristine beaches. Backpackers and adventure travelers also fancy rural life on the island.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to expand our port in Olango so that it can accommodate RoRo (roll-on\/roll-off) vessels. In that, people can drive and bring their vans to Olango and enjoy sight-seeing. We are also working out with fast craft operators so that they can cross Olango in seven minutes from Angasil port,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The island can also be reached via a motorized pump boat from Angasil Port in Barangay Punta Enga\u00f1o in this city.<\/p>\n

It has two lodgings that have a combined bed capacity of 20 persons, apart from room spaces offered by the locals. Some investors plan to build more hospitality accommodations.<\/p>\n

Chan said Olango would become \u201ca new social media sensation\u201d when people take their selfies on the island\u2019s various spots and post them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s because our Internet connectivity is very reliable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

About 10,000 families stand to benefit once Olango turns into a new tourism escapade, Chan said.<\/p>\n

The group of islands has a total land area of about 1,030 hectares and has sandy beaches, rocky shorelines, inshore flats, mangrove forests, coral reefs, and other marine features.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAPU-LAPU CITY\u00a0\u2013 The city government is bent on repackaging the Olango group of islands as an \u201cecotourism hub\u201d in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":266978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-travel","mauthors-john-rey-saavedra","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266979,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266976\/revisions\/266979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}