SAN FERNANDO CITY–Various hotel, resort and restaurant associations in the Ilocos region have asked newly appointed Land Transportation Office (LTO) director-general Arturo Lomibao to help make tourism a top industry of the country.

The group’s spokesman, Bert Bautista, president of the La Union Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Association (LUHRRA), said the LTO under Lomibao may yet bolster the tourism industry’s bid as the “main anchor of economic growth in the face of the global trade order that is now steadily influencing the rise of new tiger economies of Asia. And the Pacific region.”

In batting for the agency’s direct participation in the industry, Bautista noted that tourism is closely associated with the transport sector that moves people.

“LTO must be equally in the forefront of the tourism industry, particularly in providing guarantee to the safety of foreigners on pleasure trips and investment explorations in the country Philippines,” Bautista said.

The tourism groups also urged the new LTO chief to undertake measures aimed at transforming vast tracts of idle lands into productive plantations of Jathropa, known locally as “Tagumbaw”, the newly discovered plant that has great potentials as alternative source of bio-diesel fuel.

As head of the agency, Lomibao is in a better position to tap the country’s various transport cooperatives to “participate directly and actively” in the national government’s recently launched “727 revolution,” the groups said.

“With General Lomibao at the helm of the LTO, I am sure heads of the region, province and field offices will be on their toes given his knack for surprise visits in the field,” Pat Urmaza, LTO chief of Dagupan City, said.

<>The transport sector, Bautista pointed out, will benefit directly from the endeavor because of the continued spiraling cost of diesel fuel.
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