After two years, the annual Visit Samal festival in the Island Garden City of Samal in Davao del Norte reopened with new events in store for the month of May.

Rosabel Jusguan, acting city investment tourism officer, said the event dubbed “Visit Samal Islands: Summer Saya sa Isla 2022” now includes various events and sports competitions.

“For two years, it was put on hold due to the pandemic where face-to face-events were restricted. This time, we added sports competition to make it more exciting,” Jusguan said in an interview Thursday.

In partnership with the Sports Development Program of the city mayor’s office and tourism stakeholders, Jusguan said the event is also made possible through the support of various associations.

“Actually we started the preliminaries in April but the highlights of the Summer Saya event are from May 1 to 31,” she said, adding the events are not only exclusive to the Samaleños but the guests as well.

“We’ve been expecting guests coming from different provinces and regions, particularly from the National Capital Region, who will participate in the beach volleyball which is an open competition,” she said.

Jusguan said they included the first-ever Samal Island Dive Fest in the summer fun events.

The Visit Samal campaign was launched in 2011 by the Department of Tourism in Davao Region and the private sector-led Samal Island Tourism Council.

The local government has declared March, April, and May as the Visit Samal Island months, with the primary goal of attracting more visitors to the island city. (PNA)