BORACAY ISLAND -- It's getting more and more crowded and the barangay (village) chairman of one of the three villages on this popular island is not happy.
The increasing number of tourists was fine as tourists were helping the local economy, said 51-year-old Balabag, Malay chairman Glenn Sacapaño.
But the mushrooming of bars, shops, and resorts here had been threatening the future of the island he swore to protect, Sacapaño said.
Last year, more than 556,000 tourists, 342,052 of who were foreigners visited the island in the province of Aklan, figures from the tourism office here said.
The figure is higher than the 499,457 tourists (321, 893 foreigners) who visited the island in 2005, despite the typhoons which hit the province late last year.
"If you ask now, there are no specific action plans for the island in the next few years," Sacapaño told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net, on Thursday.
"If more and more establishments are put up here, there will be no more open spaces left. We will lose Boracay," Sacapaño also said.
There are already efforts to improve the preserve the beauty of Boracay, according to the Department of Tourism.
No comments:
Post a Comment