Mayon eruption may be biggest tourist event this year
By Philippines News Agency - Oct 1, 2014
In Photo: Mayon Volcano in eruption on December 29, 2009.
LEGAZPI CITY—Albay frowns on disaster tourism promotion, but the ongoing
threats of major eruption by Mayon Volcano, the world’s most perfect-cone
mountain, is emerging as the Philippines’s biggest 2014 touristic event.
Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said the strong probability of a Vulcanian-Strombollian
eruption of Mayon is another geological phenomenon now waiting to happen, but it
has drawn foreign tourists in droves.
Salceda said they have already moved residents within Mayon’s 6-kilometer radius
danger zone and up to 8-km extended buffer zone, away from harms’ way, and are
now safe in evacuation centers, so that problem has already been addressed. The
focus of attention is now in providing the needs of the 10,902 families in the 44
evacuation centers across Albay.
Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology officials warned of a possible big
blast of Mayon, due to a gargantuan lava dome that has accumulated at its crater in
recent weeks. As this developed, more tourists were noted to have arrived in the
province.
The governor said tourists can pose some problems in their operations, “but there’s
no way to stop them from watching the world’s most perfect-cone volcano blows its
top, which is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.” Visitors can watch lava and pyroclastic
materials cascade down Mayon’s southeastern slope, especially on clear nights.
The Albay Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council has
prohibited activities near the volcano, all-terrain vehicle tours, trekking, playing golf at
Doña Pepita Golf Course and all other activities within the permanent danger zone.
The recommended areas where tourists could view the volcano from a distance are
Ligñon Hill, Cagsawa Ruins Park, Daraga Church, Legazpi City Boulevard, Taysan
Hills and Quituinan Hills. The spectacle could be better viewed at night.
“Our objective is to make the surroundings so boring and the stage so uneventful
that Mayon can have her solo show. Once endangered residents are evacuated, an
eruption should actually be an engaging geological and touristic event,” said
Salceda.
The governor said it is their policy not to promote disaster tourism “in respect to the
dignity of displaced families; we would rather have Alert 0 and still gain a lot of
tourists by investing in aggressive promotion rather than spend the same for
protracted evacuation.”
“Maintaining evacuees for months, as in Mayon’s past eruptions, is more taxing and
worrisome, and expensive, than actual aggressive tourism promotion,” he pointed
out.
The Department of Tourism has declared Albay as the Philippines’s fastest-growing
tourist destination. It has posted a sustained tourism growth, leaping by 47 percent in
2012 and 66 percent in 2013. After a flat first-quarter performance, it registered
another 52-percent growth in the second quarter of this year.
Tourist arrivals spiked at Alert Level 3 during the 2009 eruption, where Albay
achieved its foreign tourist targets for one year in just one month, which benefited
private enterprises. There were no damages but the province spent for evacuation.
PNA