BAGUIO CITY – The Baguio City Police Office said that an estimated 32,000 people witnessed the grand float parade of the Panagbenga Festival here on February 25.

Police Lt. Col. Domingo Gambican, BCPO deputy city director for operations, told the Kapihan sa Baguio media conference on February 28 that an estimated 32,000 individuals saw the parade from Session Road to Harrison Road.

Gambican added that an estimated 20,000 people watched the street dancing parade on February 24.

The Baguio Flower Festival Foundation Inc. expects more people to see the two events next year.

"Of course, we would like to have more visitors and I guess it's a slow climb pre-pandemic situation,” said Anthony de Leon, executive committee chairman of the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation Inc.

“We'll just have to understand that people are still trying to recover from the pandemic. Hopefully by next year it will be more visitors and at the same time it also gives the city enough time to plan for accommodating bigger numbers," De Leon added.

"In my opinion, we'll be good, I think we put on a great show, best performer, we have a lot of participants, in fact more than we expected in terms of cultural presentation and floats and the participation at the market encounter, landscaping, and Session Road in Bloom,” he said.

“So, we always do as we can, innovate and try to come up new ideas. We are normalizing as far domestic tourism is concerned. For next year, hopefully, we can do something bigger in terms of number of visitors.”