ANGELES CITY – Tourism officials made much a do over the honesty of a tricycle driver who returned recently an expensive cellphone left in his tricycle by an Indian national working at Clark Freeport.
Ronaldo Tiotuico, regional director of the Department of Tourism (DOT), even held a ceremony at the Marlim Mansions in Barangay Balibago wherein tricycle driver Salvador Dizon III turned over the iPhone 4 unit to its owner Venky Venkatesan, an Indian national working at Sutherland in Clark as program manager.
Tiotuico said Dizon is a father of four and has been a tricycle driver for the last 16 years. On 16 other occasions, he was noted to have returned the valuables, including loaded wallets and bags, of his passengers.
Dizon’s applauding audience consisted of some 700 local tricycle drivers who were participating in a multi-agency sponsored seminar on effective customer service initiated by Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan “to train drivers on honesty, value formation and customer relations.”
Pamintuan said local tricycle drivers comprised the first group to undergo such seminar amid plans of the city government to make Angeles tourist-friendly amid growing arrival of foreign and domestic tourists at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA).
Tiotuico said drumming up the honesty of Dizon was meant to emphasize how honest reputation of an area can boost tourism, as he noted that tourists naturally avoid going to places with any form of notoriety.
“The turn over ceremony was done before other tricycle drivers to convey to them our seriousness to professionalize the services of the city public transport sector,” he said, adding that Dizon is a member of the Diamond Subdivision Tricycle Operator and Driver Association which operates in an area frequented by foreign tourists.
The DOT awarded Dizon a citation for honesty.
Tiotuico noted that “tourism frontline service program” has been one of his priorities. “Key players like drivers, waiters and waitresses, front desk clerks, and even street vendors are vital to the promotion of a local tourism hub. If they perform well as service providers, then everything else will follow,” he said.
For his part, Pamintuan asked heads of trike associations to “help in reporting erring drivers who are overcharging passengers, overloading, reckless driving and shabby looks.”
