Iloilo City is poised to claim the title “Philippines’ first green MICE destination,” as it embarks on an aggressive Green Meets Great campaign as outlined in the city government’s 2025 outlook and presented by a team led by Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Trenas, at a gathering on October 22.
As one of the few local government units in the Philippines to establish a thriving Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) Office, Iloilo City meets the conditions to be a top MICE tourism hub for Southeast Asia. The Green Meets Great campaign signals a liveable, sustainable, highly urbanized Iloilo City, offering a wide array of green MICE options for traveling groups eager to experience.
Records from the Department of Tourism showed that Iloilo City clocked a total of 752,301 tourists in 2022, and 886,283 in 2023. Moreover, Iloilo City was declared a Clean Tourist City by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), making the city a good ground to promote sustainable energy practices in the country.
As bestowed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Iloilo City has also been named in Creative City of Gastronomy in 2023. Initiatives under the Green Meets Great program include accreditation of solar panel and energy saver establishments, government buildings, and accommodations as well as renewable energy adoption incentives, and waste management protocols especially for streets and parks. The Green Meets Great program also aims to improve sustainable tourism mobility with its bikeable city plan, having won the Gold Award for Most Bicycle-Friendly City last year.
Programs are geared towards a sustainable environment including paperless registrations and bookkeeping, cashless transactions down to the markets, an emphasis on the city’s no smoking city ordinance, and no styrofoam and no plastic directives in events, pivoting toward 100 percent compostable materials. Encouraging stakeholder participation in renewable energy adoption, in May, 2024, the Department of Energy (DOE) lauded the success of its Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) campaign on the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP) and other voluntary renewable energy programs in Iloilo City.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) recognized Iloilo City at the 2024 Lunsod Lunsad Awards for innovative local growth projects in August, 2024, becoming a recipient of a PHP2-million grant under the Lunsod Lunsad Project. This gave rise to the Iloilo City Lunsod Lunsad Creative Gastronomy Mapping, Strategy Development, Showcase, comprehensive mapping of the gastronomic landscape of Iloilo City.
