Cagayan de Oro – With 500 athletes from across the country expected to join, the two-day 2nd Mayor’s Cup Spring Festival Dragon Boat competition can help boost sports tourism in Cagayan de Oro City, a City Hall official said.
‘Each teams have their own separate budgets, that’s why this event would fall under sports tourism. Since they will spend their own money here in the city, this will go back to the city,’ said Oro-Trade Investments Promotion Center (Oro-TIPC) chief John Asuncion in Visayan during a press briefing on the city’s Chinese New Year celebration held at the City Information Office (CIO).
The two-day 2nd Mayor’s Cup Spring Festival Dragon Boat competition will be held on Feb. 17 and 18 (Saturday and Sunday) at Isla de Oro. A welcome dinner will be held by City Hall for the athletes prior to the competition.
‘A couple of teams sponsored by their local governments will have limited budgets so we will house them in our sports dorm in Lumbia,’ Asuncion said.
The Oro-TIPC chief said the dragon boat race will consist of the standard and the half boat categories and six different races. ‘The prize money depends on the categories. The cash prizes for the standard category will be P50,000 for the first prize, P30,000 second prize, P20,000 for third and P10,000 for fourth,’ Asuncion said.
For the half boat category, P25,000 will be the top prize followed by P15,000 second prize, P10,000 third prize and P5,000 for fourth prize. ‘The participants will be those under 24 years old, 40 and above, standard and mixed or men and women,’ Asuncion said.
Based on their estimates, one rower is budgeted at least P1,000 daily, he said. ‘Conservatively, if that’s 500 athletes, then that’s half a million pesos into the local economy right away and that can help (our local businesses). If they stay here for five days, that’s P2.5 million in less than a week. That’s a big help to our businesses. And there are teams staying in our hotels and they can spend more so that P2.5 million is a conservative estimate,’ Asuncion said.
News and photo courtesy of CIO CDO