AS part of City Hall’s 10-day calendar of activities to celebrate the Chinese New Year, the two-day 2nd Mayor’s Cup Spring Festival Dragon Boat competition is seen to boost sports tourism in Cagayan de Oro City.
During a press briefing hosted by the City Information Office, Oro-Trade Investments Promotion Center (Oro-TIPC) chief John Asuncion said about 500 athletes from across the country are expected to join the event to be held from Feb. 17 to Feb. 18. A welcome dinner will be held by City Hall for the athletes before the competition, he said.
“Each team has their 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. A couple of teams sponsored by their local governments will have limited budgets so we will house them in our sports dorm in barangay 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 the third, and P10,000 for the 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 added.
“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 teams are staying in our hotels and they can spend more so that P2.5 million is a conservative estimate,” Asuncion said. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)
