Visit Samal Island Festival 2011
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Image courtesy Samal City Mayor’s Office
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The two-month long Visit Samal Island Festival kicks of in March with the intent of bringing Samal Island to the notice of beach-goers and adventure tourists from around the Philippines and from farther afield. The festival has all of the ingredients for a smorgasbord of fun in the sun.
The festival will showcase the beauties of Samal with a beauty pageant to find Miss Tourism Samal Island 2011, talent show, fire dancing, jingle writing and photographic exhibitions. There will be frisbee championships and the search for Miss Body Beautiful. Kite-flying contests and beach-volleyball competitions. And finally, (my favorite) culinary competitions, where the abundant native fruits (thanks to the fruit bats) and seafood are the centerpiece. Enjoy tuna? Come for this.
Samal Island has for many years struggled to form its own identity, distinct from Davao City (less than fifteen minutes away by ferry), and easily identifiable within the Philippine menu of tropical island destinations. The creation of the eight week Visit Samal Island Festival is in expectation that, by highlighting the diversity of the island’s natural and man-made tourism resources & infrastructure, the island can shine as a unique destination of value.
Samal island is unique already in many ways. Half the size of Singapore but with only a small fraction of the population, Samal Island is perfectly positioned for tourism, less than one hour from Davao International Airport. The island is covered with greenery, although not perhaps the sort that supports its claim to be the Island Garden City, and surrounded by coral reefs of superb visual beauty. There are countless pocket-beaches and coves separated by copses of established and replanted mangrove.
Samal Island is home to what was once the most exclusive beach resort in the Philippines: the Pearl Farm. Many new beach resorts have attempted to capitalize on the Pearl Farm’s success in attracting the rich & sometimes famous but none have achieved it . . . yet.
Relying mostly on attracting local tourism from the Davao region, most beach resorts on Samal Island cater for the weekend get-away tourist – competing with cheaper-to-get-to Davao City malls and other waterfront attractions along the Davao City coastline. To compete, Samal Island beach resorts rely on their clean water & beaches, and provide a range of entertainments – ironically there are more swimming pools on Samal Island than in Davao City.
Strangely, despite its very close proximity to Davao City, Samal Island is administratively part of Davar Del Norte province. Anecdotal evidence suggests that when the Davao Region was carved up administratively, Davao City saw no value in Samal Island and so handed it over to Davao Del Norte. I suspect they regret this decision now; certainly Samal Island regrets the decision as it has lagged behind the City in terms of development funding – clearly evidenced by the predominance of dirt roads as against Davao City’s concrete highways.
Samal Island will be most of interest to the adventure & eco tourist. Water sports such as scuba diving, snorkeling are major attractions – the water is crystal clear and marine life abundant around the numerous reefs systems, especially on the North and East coasts. Windsurfing and kayaking are relatively new water sports around Samal but are catching on fast. Jet skis are unfortunately making their mark, as are parasailing and banana boat rides.
On the East coast and in the center of the island you can trek, climb and abseil to new perspectives and the island features some of the prettiest waterfalls and interesting caves in the area.
Samal Island also holds the World record for the largest colony of fruit bats anywhere on the planet. The Monfort Bat Cave hosts an estimated 1.8 million fruit bats and they put on a must-see emergence show every afternoon at sundown.
Sadly, the mayor’s office of Samal Island has for so long focused on very local tourism issues that it has been left behind the rest of the country in terms of publicity; perhaps this Visit Samal Island Festival marks a turning point. The recent temporary restraining order granted against the municipality, concerning its draconian Environmental Usage Fee (EUF), combined with the active participation of almost all of the beach resorts in the various festival events tells us that the people of Samal Island want the festival to get them noticed as a viable Philippine tourist destination. Certainly Samal Island has all the natural ingredients of a destination ripe for discovery.
Links:
For more information, email: visitsamalisland@yahoo.com
How to fly to Davao International Airport