Mountain Province tourism bracing for impact of rising fuel prices
BAGUIO CITY—Tourism in Mountain Province is taking a hit from the fuel shocks due to the conflict in the Middle East, which entered its 25th day on Wednesday.
Gov. Bonifacio Lacwasan on Wednesday canceled the province’s annual Lang-ay Festival scheduled on April 6 to comply with President Marcos’ declaration of a state of national energy emergency.
This followed extensive consultations last week about the impact of unstable fuel prices, involving provincial officials and community leaders who have been staging the tourist-drawing festival since 2005 to coincide with the province’s foundation day.
Mountain Province will proceed with a simple commemoration of its 59th founding anniversary, according to Lacwasan’s Executive Order No. 17.
Stressing that “lang-ay” (a Bontoc term for shared merrymaking) “is an important cultural celebration,” EO 17 says “the provincial government deems it prudent and necessary to temporarily suspend festival activities in support of the national effort to conserve energy and ensure responsible use of public funds.”
Also on Wednesday, Sagada Mayor Felicito Dula said the municipal government has been studying the impact of the Middle East conflict on Cordillera travel. The town’s caves, forests and iconic hanging coffins have made Sagada a niche tourism destination, drawing 108,059 visitors in 2023, the mayor said. Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, over 144,000 guests stayed in Sagada.
Bad for small business
A drastic reduction in travel would hurt not only Sagada’s accommodation trade but all other downstream businesses built around its robust tourism, like tour guides, eateries and souvenir vendors, Dula said on the sidelines of the ceremonial launching of a national climate resilience grant program to be undertaken until 2030 by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Sagada is among the 10 Cordillera towns which will receive these grants.
Tourism is one of the key industries sustaining Sagada, a fourth-class municipality (average annual income of P90 million or more but less than P130 million) that is home to more than 11,000 residents, the mayor said. “Once people stop driving up [to the mountains], we would get worried,” Dula said.
Sagada’s economy has been rising, along with the rest of the province, he pointed out, owing to tourism. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, Mountain Province’s economic production grew by 3.4 percent in 2024, or an increase from P15.87 billion in 2023 to P16.4 billion in 2024.
