CALASIAO—Pangasinan has a number of historical churches that can interest thousands of pilgrims in the country, so why not create and promote a Pangasinan Pilgrimage Tour?

This was posed by Verliza Abila, Calasiao tourism officer and secretary of the Pangasinan Tourism Officers Association (PTOA) to her peers in the third and fourth district of Pangasinan.

She said central districts have no beaches or mountains to attract tourists but there are historical churches including the Our Lady of Manaoag Basilica Minore in Manaoag, St. Peter and Paul church and Senior Tesoro Divino Shrine in Calasiao and the St. John’s Cathedral in Dagupan City.

Abila said the idea of a Pilgrimage Tour was formed during a workshop training of PTOA last 2012 but it never materialized.

She said the traditional peak season for the tour package will be Holy Week and it presents an opportunity to promote the ‘one-town-one-product’ of the towns along the way.

She said many tourists visit Calasiao’s St. Peter and Paul Church but there has been no way to measure the number of visitors to the town since the travel agencies arrange the tours on their own.

She is confident that travel agencies will be happy to offer the Pilgrimage Tour.

Calasiao recently held its annual Puto Festival that boosted the income of the town’s Puto (native rice cake) industry.

The Department of Tourism (DOT) also supported the town’s tourism industry by allocating P38 million for the concreting of the road leading to the Senior Divino Tesoro Shrine and P3 million for the two-storey rest area for tourists in the town.

“We hope our legislators in the third and fourth district will support improvement of infrastructure for the success of the Pilgrimage tour,” said Abila. (Hilda Austria)

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