Eastern Visayas tourism recovers after ‘Yolanda’

The tourism industry in Region 8 or Eastern Visayas is growing steadily, and businesses are coming back, almost two years after super typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan) struck the region, local officials said.

“Immediately after Yolanda happened, there were a lot of people that were saying the tourism industry for Region 8 died with Yolanda, but we’re very proud to say that we proved them wrong,” Department of Tourism (DOT) Region 8 Regional Director Karina Rosa S. Tiopes told the Manila Times. “In fact on that very first week, the doors of our hotels opened because they needed to provide accommodation facilities for the volunteers. We can say that they were not really tourists but then they needed the industry for their needs. Immediately after that, recovery from our stakeholders was fast. They saw opportunity in the midst of these challenges.”