TACLOBAN CITY—Lorna Rocabo, 43, sits inside her glass-panelled office comfortably, answering phone calls and signing papers delivered to her by her staff.
“Today is already something different. The bookings continue and visitors are growing, even times three than the past,” said Rocabo. She is sales and marketing manager of Leyte Park.
Considered as the biggest hotel and resort in Tacloban, the six-hectare Leyte Park became some sort of humanitarian headquarters immediately after Yolanda, the world’s most powerful typhoon to hit land, levelled the city and most parts of Leyte province on November 8, 2013.
Over 7,000 people were killed, mostly in Tacloban, with estimated damage to property of P130 billion.
At least six international aid groups, including Red Cross, set up offices at the hotel, with Oxfam being the last to leave in March.
Yet, according to Rocabo, there is now a striking form of rebirth just over a year after the storm, courtesy of the tourism industry. “And I thought I would be jobless,” she said.
“I was afraid, hopeless. I thought I would be jobless by now,” Rocabo said, shaking her head, as she tried to recall her ordeal during Yolanda.
Karen Tiopes, regional tourism director, says: “Yolanda gave us mileage. At the time, the news and features about us were about the devastation and the challenges it brought our way. But this crisis also brought along opportunities.”
With this development, Tiopes said hotel and accommodation facilities, food, transports, entertainment, and souvenir items, among others, flourished around the city and in the region.
As of April 2015, statistical data on revenue generated from visitors arrivals to various attractions in Eastern Visayas from 2013 to 2014 reached P3.3 billion.
Some of the natural attractions getting good reviews in the region include the Sambawan Island in Biliran; Sohoton National Park in Basey, Samar; Macrohon Fish Sanctuary and many dive sites in Southern Leyte; Biri Rock Formation in Northern Samar; Torpedo Boat Extreme Ride in Paranas, Samar; Pink Sand Beach in San Vicente, Northern Samar; Capul Island in Northern Samar; Canigao Island in Matalo, Leyte; other heritage sites in Tacloban and Leyte, among others.
“We also saw the opportunity to promote the region capitalizing on the media mileage and name recall that Yolanda generated. The industry endeavors to build back the image of Eastern Visayas, this time, showing its tourism assets,” Tiopes said, following the statement of Taleb Rifai, secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization when he visited the city last year.
During his first time visit in the city, Rifai pointed out on the importance of tourism to create jobs and restore the economy in devastated areas.
“We have seen the industry lost so much…Don’t give up. Because if you will do, you will send wrong message to the world. Tell the world you are ready,” Rifai earlier urged the tourism industry players in the region, adding tourism is a “stubborn” business.
As for Lorna and other 109 employees in the hotel, the ongoing recovery in their workplace helped them in bringing back their faith on the future of the city.
“I can continue sending my two children to school now, while my husband can also keep his job as chef here in the hotel,” Rocabo said, adding that the hotel holds a “special place” in her heart since it is here where she and her husband Elmer first met.
“When our house and this hotel were destroyed, I told to myself this is the end. I was wrong. We just need to be positive,” she said.