CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines — The Department of Tourism (DoT) in Central Luzon announced Friday that top officials of the DoT and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) have signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) to boost tourism by building roads leading to top tourist destinations.

DoT-Central Luzon Regional Director Ronaldo P. Tiotuico said the MoA aims to enhance access to vital destinations by building roads that directly connect to infrastructures like international gateways as well as town service centers where a cluster of hotels, restaurants, travel and tour services and other related services abound.

Tiotuico said that an action planning conference was held recently among regional executives of DoT and the DPWH, together with some partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and tourism councils to flesh out the directives contained in the agreement by prioritizing tourism road infrastructure projects (TRIP) located in the 21 tourism development areas (TDAs) identified in the National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP 2011-2016).

He explained that the TDA is defined as an area covered by a single local government unit (LGU) that has already an existing or emerging tourist center but which lacks road infrastructure support leading to places most frequently visited by tourists.

This is just the first step in achieving the goal of generating 10 million visitors in 2016, he said.

Based on the agreement, the DOT would identify the tourism road projects while DPWH would be the one to build. The timetable for the project is between 2013 up to 2016.

He said priority will be given to those tourism development areas which have already an existing gateway like an airport or seaport, and are served by a service center clustered by hotels, dining facilities, among other services.

Thus, he said priority will be granted to tourist centers which generate a significant number of visitors and are supported by an ample supply of rooms and services.

In Central Luzon alone, and in accordance with the NTDP conclusions, its TDAs consist of Subic-Clark-Tarlac corridor, Pampanga, Bulacan, Bataan coast and inland, Zambales coast, Nueva Ecija and Aurora.

These areas have already existing gateways and are served by a host of vital tourism services while the volume of visitor arrivals has become significant to warrant priority consideration in the program with a significant number of hotel rooms to support such development, Tiotuico said.

He also said that the tourism development for the region is centered on the current and future development of Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) which is seen to be the next premiere gateway to the world.

At present, DMIA generates monthly inbound travel for some 30,000 passengers wherein - half of which are foreign visitors.

Its existing passenger terminal can accommodate 2.5 million passenger movements but once the second phase of the terminal is completed this year, its holding capacity will reach 10 million, he said.

On the other hand, the volume of domestic visitor arrivals in the entire region has reached the one millionth mark based on statistics gathered by local government units (LGUs) wherein 50 percent of which is generated by both Clark and Subic.

The tourism road infrastructure project is expected to interlink all the provinces in Central Luzon to the gateway in Clark.

In so doing, "we are optimistic that it will increase visitor traffic in all the provinces, bolster the economic development of the entire region and at the same time, create more jobs for all," he said.

He said the final draft of the project for Region 3 is expected to be formally submitted to DPWH by April 9, 2012 for inclusion in their 2013 work program.