Katrina Ganzon
Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Urban Planning
Biography
Katrina is a PhD candidate at the Melbourne School of Design. Her current research project investigates informal public transport operations in the context of tourism, specifically focusing on the role of informal public transport workers in the tourism sector. Broadly, her research interests include tourism planning, transport planning, and traffic engineering.
Katrina was a DOST-ERDT (Department of Science and Technology - Engineering Research and Development for Technology) scholar at De La Salle University, Philippines. In 2014, she obtained her Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Civil Engineering with a Transportation Engineering specialization from the university. She has five years of experience working as a traffic/highway design engineer for Manila-based consultancies.
Thesis
An analysis of informal transport workers' role in the tourism sector of Philippine towns
The tourism sector and the transport industry have a strong socio-economic link. Tourism generates income and jobs, including transport work, while transport boosts tourism by facilitating travel. Adequate transport infrastructure is vital to tourism growth. But in developing countries like the Philippines, poor transport infrastructure has left voids in land-based formal public transport provision. Some areas in the country, including tourism destinations, are left underserved by formal public transport. Filling this gap are various forms of informal public transport, including jeepneys and rickshaws (e.g., tricycles and pedicabs), supplied by the informal transport workforce.
In the context of Philippine towns, tricycle drivers offer both transport and tour guiding services, bridging the spatial and temporal gaps in tourism transport provision. Yet, informal public transport operation remains within the urban 'gray space', and informal transport work is still considered informal employment. Hence, informal transport workers remain mostly invisible to planners and policymakers. Aiming to contribute to an informed tourism transport planning and to the knowledge base of informal transport, this research investigates the role of informal transport workers, particularly tricycle drivers, in the tourism sector of Baler, a tourism town destination in the Philippines.