GENERAL LUNA, Siargao Islands (MindaNews / 12 January) – Tourism-related businesses will invest at least P3 billion in Siargao Islands this year with the influx of tourists and increasing transportation services, General Luna Mayor Jaime P. Rusillon said Friday.
Around 90 percent of the investments will be poured in this town, he said.
He said most of the capital will go to purchases of land as well as building resorts and other tourism-related investments.
Pansukian sandbar commonly known now as “Naked Island” in General Luna, Siargao Islands in Surigao del Norte is always full of both local and foreign tourists. Photo taken on January 9, 2018. MindaNews photo by ROEL N. CATOTO
He said that in the past few months over 50 new businesses have opened in the town with multimillion-peso investments.
“There were several cozy resorts that opened its doors in town recently,” the mayor said.
Rusillon stressed that this is aside from the companies that invested in transportation services.
Since late last year, commercial flights have been servicing the Cebu-Siargao and Manila-Siargao routes.
At the same time, at least three commercial vessels have been ferrying passengers from Surigao City to Dapa, the capital town of Siargao Islands.
Rusillon had a meeting with Russian Ambassador Igor Khovaev and two Russian investors during their visit here early last month.
He said the Russian investors wanted to invest as well as promote the place to the Russian Surfing Club.
He noted that in the last five years, over a billion pesos from the tourism industry have been spent every year in the town.
He said resorts, inns, hotels and pension houses in the town now number 100, adding no other town in all of Caraga Region has this much number of facilities.
“Not just inns have been sprouting like mushrooms but also restaurants and other tourism-related businesses,” he said.
He said the investments have provided more job opportunities for residents.
“It trickles down to the local economy. Thus, we prevent our people from leaving the island to work in other places,” he said.
General Luna, known as the surfing capital of the Philippines, is considered the tourism hub of Caraga Region which comprises the provinces of Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur and Dinagat Island. (Roel N. Catoto/MindaNews)
