Travelers planning a Visayas holiday can now map out multi-island trips based on the number of days they have, with a new website bringing destination guides, personalized itineraries and booking services under one digital roof.
The Discover the Visayas platform at discoverthevisayas.com uses Cebu as the gateway to six initial destinations: Lapu-Lapu, Panglao, Boracay, Siquijor, Guimaras and Biliran.
The #FlyViaCebu campaign aims to make island-hopping less of a logistical exercise and more of what a vacation should be: deciding which beach, food stop or cultural experience to enjoy next.
Travelers can build personalized itineraries and book flights, accommodations and experiences through travel partners Trip.com and Klook.
“Travelers should not have to piece together a Visayas trip island by island. The website puts our destinations, itineraries, and booking partners in one place, so a visitor who lands in Cebu can plan the next island as easily as the first,” said Anthony Noel, Visayas Island-Chambers Tourism Alliance (VITA) chairman and Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Lapu-Lapu president.
Cebu serves as the campaign’s “One Gateway. More Islands” proposition, with Mactan-Cebu International Airport providing connections to the region. Flights from Cebu to Siquijor and Caticlan, the gateway to Boracay, take about 55 minutes, excluding onward transfers.
The airport’s CEB Connects service also offers domestic passengers a minimum connection time of 35 minutes, with baggage checked through to their final destination.
For travelers, that means less time arranging connections and more time deciding whether the next stop calls for a beach, a heritage walk or another serving of local food.
The platform is a collaboration among VITA, PCCI, the Department of Tourism and airport operator Aboitiz InfraCapital Cebu Airport Corporation.
It also has a distinctly local business angle. Each destination is represented by its local chamber of commerce, bringing together recommendations from enterprises and communities that know their islands best.
Tourism Region 7 Director Gelena Asis-Dimpas said connecting destinations could encourage longer stays, more diverse experiences and wider benefits for local tourism enterprises.
PCCI Visayas vice president Jobert A. Peñaflorida said the platform would help travelers see how destinations connect while giving more local businesses opportunities to benefit from tourism.
The bigger proposition is to make the Visayas less of a collection of islands to visit one at a time and more of a connected holiday circuit.
After all, having only a few vacation days should not mean having to choose just one island. Sometimes the best part of a Visayas holiday is deciding where to go next.
