Tourist buses in summer capital to ferry visitors

By Gaby B. Keith

BAGUIO CITY -- Colorful tourist buses seen in many cities around the world ferrying visitors to popular sites will soon welcome its local counterparts in this summer capital.
    City tourism officer engineer Aloysius Mapalo bared this in Tuesday’s regular management committee meeting of city officials at Baguio Convention Center and in a media forum, Wednesday, at City Hall.
    Called hop-on, hop-off tourist buses or “Ho-Hos”, he said the city will utilize two buses earlier donated to the city government by local transportation firms for the tourism project.
    The plan to turn these donated buses into Ho-ho ferries to serve tourists was hatched before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Mapalo said.
    “Even now that we are in the midst of the pandemic, the city is looking into implementing the project little by little,” he said.
    The idea, Mapalo said -- the city will issue Ho-Ho tickets to tourists on each of their  visit that will grant them unlimited rides in the Ho-Ho buses.
    With the Baguio Convention Center as staging and starting point, the  Ho-Ho circuit will have the Botanical Garden as its first stop; the Mansion, second; Mines View Park, third; Wright Park  and its environs, fourth; then end at the Gov. Pack Road area where a walking tour of the central business district including Session Road, Cathedral, Burnham Park will ensue.
    The buses will then return to the Baguio Convention Center to pick up a new batch of visitors, Mapalo said.
    Each stop will last around 20 minutes where tourists can choose to stay longer if they want more time to roam around the area and wait for the next scheduled Ho-Ho bus to hop-on to. 
    The entire circuit is estimated to last about an hour and thirty minutes.
    Mapalo said P100 will be charged ticket for tourists with a discounted rate of P80 for senior citizens and students.
     A test run will be conducted before the project can be fully implemented before the city government is able to allow a lot more tourists to visit in the coming weeks or months, he added.
    The two buses will be checked to make sure these are in good running condition and will be decorated to look like tourist buses, Mapalo said.