A team of sustainability researchers from UST’s Research Center for Social Sciences and Education recently published a paper on how sustainable tourism can be promoted in the island of Siquijor, as envisioned from the expressed needs of its inhabitants. Following a training needs analysis and applying the Sustainable Tourism and Human Capital Development philosophies, the paper co-authored by Prof. Alain Jomarie G. Santos, PhD, Prof. Arlen A. Ancheta, PhD, Prof. Moises Norman Z. Garcia, PhD, and Prof. Maria Rosario Virginia Cobar-Garcia, PhD provided data-driven bases for future training programs.
The new study, entitled “Conservation of Sustainable Ecotourism on the Island of Siquijor through Sustainable Alternative Livelihoods, Training and Development,” was published in The International Journal of Social Sustainability in Economic, Social, and Cultural Context. The participants, who were inhabitants of the island, favored sustainable ecotourism but expressed the need for intensive capacity-building in both interpersonal and computer skills. In terms of actual livelihood activities, the participants identified housekeeping, healing massage training, and tour guiding/tour car driving as immediate areas of concern. To help manage the desired influx of tourists, the residents likewise expressed the need for basic first aid training.
Santos is the incumbent Chair of the Department of Economics of the Faculty of Arts and Letters, while Ancheta teaches at the Graduate School. Meanwhile, the Garcias are academic researchers of the Department of Biological Sciences of the College of Science.
