Business leaders who attended the two-day Visayas Area Business Conference (VABC) of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry here on July 17-18 said business and economic opportunities in the region were “still doing well” amid the global economic crisis.

Despite a slump in exports, especially in electronics, furniture, and fashion accessories that have mainly affected Cebu, other industries especially tourism and call centers continue to grow, business leaders said.

“We cannot deny that local businesses are affected. We have more work to do and we must strive harder but there are more than enough reasons to be be optimistic,” Jose Ng, 18th VABC chairman and PCCI vice president for Visayas, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

The Department of Tourism (DoT) earlier cited Cebu as the country's top tourist destination based on tourist arrivals for the first quarter of this year. Other top tourist destinations including the world famous Boracay Island and Panglao Island in Bohol are also in the Visayas.

The BPO industry in Cebu has been fast growing and has been limited only by the supply of skilled workers especially in call centers, Ng said.

“The demand is still there but we have to catch up in providing more employees,” Ng said.

Call center agents and supervisors are being pirated among firms because of the limited talent pool, he said, adding companies also had to recruit from other cities and provinces to meet their needs.

Ng said the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry remained confident of the continued growth of the tourism and BPO industries and cited the two sectors as the focus industries.

“We are eyeing Cebu as the tourism and BPO hub in the country,” he said.

Joe Marie Agriam, president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Iloilo, said the Western Visayas region has generally been insulated from the impact of the global slump due to its mainly agricultural and service-oriented economy.

Agriam said investors’ continuing interest in investment opportunities in the region showed their confidence in the region’s development.

He also cited the increase in the number of call centers in Iloilo City, which provided jobs to thousands of Ilonggos.

Iloilo has been cited as among the “next wave” of international sites for BPO investments.

Business leaders in Bohol said the province was experiencing unprecedented growth in its tourism industry.

Norris Oculam, immediate past president of the Bohol Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) and co-chairperson of the Regional Development Council of Central Visayas, said remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) continued to increase in 2009 despite the crisis.

Most OFWs from the region are health workers and seafarers which are among the least affected by job cuts abroad, Oculam said.

Meanwhile, Bohol had a shortage of 2,000 hotel rooms in 2008 because of the increase in tourist arrivals, which reached 500,000, half of them domestic tourists, BCCI President Marietta Gasatan said.

“We have to double our current capacity of 2,000 hotel rooms to accommodate these tourists and we expect more if the international airport will be opened,” she said.

The increased tourist arrivals can also be attributed to the nine daily flights between Manila and Tagbilaran, Oculam said.