At least 6,250 tourism service providers in Eastern Visayas will be trained on the Filipino Brand of Service Excellence (FBSE) this year with the influx of foreign and domestic tourists after travel restrictions due to the pandemic.

During the regional launch at the Summit Hotel here Tuesday, Department of Tourism (DOT) 8 (Eastern Visayas) Regional Director Karina Rosa Tiopes said they would bring the training to six provinces in the region and towns where tourism is a priority by the local government.

The 6,250 from the region are part of the 100,000 tourism workers targeted for FBSE training nationwide for this year alone.

Before the regional launch, the DOT held small group FBSE training courses in provinces attended by about 2,000 workers from hotels, restaurants, transport services, souvenir shops, and other tourism-related services.

“The best people to provide quality service are Filipinos. This is a big asset of the tourism industry. Having front-liners practicing values taught by our grandparents and showing this to others, we can never go wrong in making the Philippines a top destination in Asia,” Tiopes told reporters.

The FBSE was rooted in the 7 Ms of core values that Filipinos are widely known for malikhain (creative), makatao (humane), makakalikasan (nature lover), makabansa (nationalistic), masayahin (happy), may bayanihan (helping each other), and may pag-asa (full of hope).

With three unique modules, the tourism program aims to instill a culture of service excellence among tourism stakeholders in the country and raise the quality of service standards among the workforce in key tourism and service sectors.

“The module has been studied anchored on Filipino values. This is timely since there is a resurgence of tourism. Flights going to Tacloban from Manila are always full,” Tiopes added.

The FBSE training will cover such topics as service excellence, understanding and engaging customers, and complaints handling. (PNA)