Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco has hailed the maiden edition of the North Luzon Travel Fair held on 18-20 November 2022 at SMX Convention Center in Clark as critical to the revitalization of Philippine tourism.

"That is why all of our Regional Directors from the entire country are here today. To bring back home the good news that North Luzon is ready for the revitalization of tourism in this part of the country," said Frasco.

Taking off from the event's theme "Weaving our Way to Recovery," Frasco said in her keynote message that the North Luzon Travel Fair was an expansion of the listening tours she initiated upon assuming office.

"A little over three months ago, I visited Clark and touched base with our tourism stakeholders, players from various sectors, including the aviation, hotel, tourism services, tourism operators, travel agencies, and other tourism industry stakeholders. And in this listening tour, our stakeholders enumerated the various challenges they faced in the past few years. Subsequent to that, I spoke to our Regional Directors from North Luzon who echoed the same sentiments, and there they shared their plans to hold a North Luzon Travel Fair. I expressed my unequivocal support but added the requirement that the North Luzon Travel Fair should not only be limited in its exposure to people in North Luzon but to everyone from across the Philippines."

"Not only will the (fair) give exposure to our local government units, our eco zones, our bases, our hotels, resorts and other accommodations, service agencies and tour operators, but more importantly our Regional Directors will proceed from this travel fair to actually visit the regions of North Luzon to be able to ensure that they, from the central and southern regions of Philippines, would be able to bring the domestic tourists from their side of the country to your side of the country," said Frasco.

The Tourism chief also shared that the Philippines continues to be a top of mind destination all over the world, hence "in this period of recovery, it is critical for us to ensure that we continue to improve the enabling mechanism of coming to and going around the Philippines."

Frasco reiterated that tourism remains a top priority of the Marcos administration. "The message of the Department of Tourism, led by our President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., is that tourism is a priority, which intends to leave no regions behind in the development of the industry. Not only will we limit ourselves to the promotions of our sites, but most importantly, we will also ensure the institutional development of the entire industry by introducing changes that address gaps, and by listening to the needs of the stakeholders."