I recently travelled from Cebu City to Ormoc on the Supercat ferry on arrival I stopped in at the local tourism office situated at the port in Ormoc. I asked for some information on diving in Leyte and Southern Leyte. To my disappointment they had nothing but a small flyer (see below), it mentions nothing about any of the 8 local dive operators, Exciting Ventures in Eastern Visayas... What does that even mean? Investigating further I asked the tourism office in Ormoc what dive shops were around to dive with, their reply was we don't know. I then decided to travel down to Maasin tourism office. Maasin is the capital of Southern Leyte. Again, they had the same ridiculous flyer. I asked the attendant in the tourism office in Maasin if they had any information on diving in Southern Leyte. She gave me the flyer and said come back later we are going to lunch.
I have been operating a dive resort in Lungsodaan, Padre Burgos Southern Leyte for more than 6 years and not once has the Department of Tourism helped us promote Southern Leyte diving, which I believe, is the best the Philippines has to offer. If you check out Department of Tourism's websites its says nothing specific about diving in Leyte or Southern Leyte. The main reason a tourist would come to Leyte and Southern Leyte is because of its fantastic diving, which despite all my attempts, the Department of Tourism has done nothing to promote, clearly they need to re-examine what Leyte has to offer, and promote the diving opportunities above all else.
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http://www.vistingmyphilippines.com/
This blog also points out the short falls of Leyte tourism
http://boholonmymind.blogspot.com/2010/02/tale-of-two-divergent-tourism-plans.html
