A Cebu Pacific flight from Hong Kong is scheduled to arrive on the last week of October or early November this year, the first international flight at Cabatuan Airport Accredited Iloilo tour operators to undergo tour packaging seminar By Vicente W. Villavert, Thursday 21st of June 2012 ILOILO CITY, June 21 (PIA) -- The Department of Tourism has invited six accredited tour operators in Western Visayas for a one-day tour packaging conference and seminar on Friday. A Cebu Pacific flight from Hong Kong is scheduled to arrive on the last week of October or early November this year, the first international flight to be accommodated at the Iloilo Airport. “We have more than 100 tour operators in the region which are licensed by the local government units, but only six tour operators have passed DOT accreditation standards,” DOT-6 officer-in-charge-director Helen J. Catalbas said in a PIA interview. During the meeting in Iloilo City, the tour operators along with the hotel operators will discuss tour packages to come up with efficient services that can lure further tourists to visit Western Visayas regularly as their tourist destination. Tour operators play a vital role in attracting tourists through tour packages. “Several foreign tourists even our domestic tourists are now aware of other beautiful and interesting spots in the region that is why it is necessary to have a networking with the tour operators in order to strengthen the tourism industry in step with President Aquino’s campaign to project the Philippines as a tourists’ destination in Asia. The OIC-Director of DOT-6 also said that last year, the region recorded about 2.4 million tourists and 509,000 of which were foreign tourists and 1.8 million were local tourists. As to the opening of the international flights in Iloilo Airport, Catalbas said that “this is a regular passenger flights coming from Hong Kong and Singapore and vice versa.” Catalbas said that the flight from Iloilo to Hong Kong will be done four times a week while the Singapore flights are slated three times a week. “If the plane’s destination today for example, is Iloilo-Hong Kong-Iloilo route, the following day it would be Iloilo-Singapore-Iloilo slate,” Catalbas pointed out as she noted that the flight schedules will be during night time and early in the morning so it will not affect the already existing domestic flight schedules at the airport. (JCM/VWV-PIA6 Iloilo) (Bookmark this page for future reference) CABATUAN AIRPORT Cabatuan.com - Timeline 2012 Cabatuan.com