ASEAN CITY TO WATCH Cebu: Among fastest growing leisure destinations in Asia

CEBU CITY - Cebu is a destination that offers both leisure facilities and

business opportunities - all in one place.

In the past four years alone, five major hotels - including Mactan Shangri-La

Resort, Marriott and Waterfront hotels - have opened. And there is Hilton, a

Sheraton, a proposed Westin resort and another Marriott property scheduled

before the turn of the century.

Nearly half a decade ago, international flights were only to and from Narita and

Changi. Today the new Mactan Cebu International Airport also serves flights

from Hong Kong, Osaka, Taipei, Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur.

Although Cebu is among the fastest growing leisure destinations in the region,

its beaches, golf courses, and dive sites still remain uncrowded compared to

Bali, Phuket and Penang.

Cebu's domestic air terminal remains the second busiest, although

visitor-arrivals went down 0.72 percent to 169,269 from 170,491 for the first

three months of 1999. But the DOTRegion VII hopes to welcome more local

tourists in the coming years.

It was also here that christianity was first introduced. And it will also be here

that complete digitalization of the telecommunications will be realized.

The giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) started to fully

digitalize the region as a percentage of operator-assisted calls has dropped

significantly as the local exchange carriers (LECs) shift to digital networks

capable of direct distance dialing (DDD).

Ernest T. Rosell, PLDT division head, of the Cebu Jones Exchange here said

some 98,712 working lines have been installed as against the target of

158,326 lines.

Rosell said that although calls via DDD-either national or international are 30

percent cheaper that those operator-assisted, the company is able to

compensate for the lower income through a bigger volume of traffic brought

about by the ease of using DDD-capable telephones.

He stressed that with the increase of households using phone which have

DDD access, customers are inclined to use their units more frequently than

those which have to wait for their calls to be processed by an operator.

Cebu City has two exchanges - the CebuJones and the Mandaue. Cebu-Jones

handles PLDT's operations in the southern part of Cebu, covering Jones, south

Cebu, Talisay, Argao and Naga sub-exchanges. (PNA)