BATTLING an anticipated decrease in visitor arrivals due to the Novel Corona Virus (Covid-19) issues dragging on international travel, the Department of Tourism (DOT) will push through its nationwide shopping festival project for the entire month of March.
In an interview with the BusinessMirror, DOT Undersecretary for Tourism Regulation, Coordination, and Resource Generation Arturo P. Boncato Jr. said, “now more than ever,” it was important to mount this “Shopping is More Fun in the Philippines” festival to boost arrivals.
As this developed, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat on Wednesday told lawmakers that the projected losses by the tourism sector due to the travel bans on China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan will reach about P43 billion from February to April 2020.
In a joint hearing by the Committees on Economic Affairs, and on Tourism at the House of Representatives, she added, the travel bans have resulted in 465 cancelled flights covering 101,452 seats. The DOT secretary is vice chair of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB).
In the same hearing, Roberto Lim, Executive Director of the Air Carriers Association of the Philippines (Acap), said about 5,200 flights will be cancelled by the group’s members due to the expanded travel ban. Assuming passengers will demand for ticket refunds, he said these would amount to some P3 billion for February and March. “But we have not calculated the impact on forward tickets sales,” he stressed. Acap members include Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Air Asia Philippines.
For his part, Jose C. Clemente III, president of the Tourism Congress of the Philippines, appealed to lawmakers to help lift the travel ban on Taiwan, which was imposed, without warning, late Monday evening. “We ask the government to reconsider this ban…. There are more [Covid-19] cases in Singapore than Taiwan, but there is no ban on Singapore.”
He added, “the Taiwan ban affected a lot of passengers. There was no prior notice…it makes us look inefficient.” A CAB memo dated Feb. 10, 2020 said the travel ban it issued on Feb. 2, on orders of President Duterte, “includes Taiwan under the One China Policy.”
Meanwhile, Boncato said the Philippine Shopping Fest project is being carried out in coordination with all the malls and their branches nationwide, the Philippine Retailers Association, and tourism stakeholders groups like the Philippine Tour Operators Association, Philippine Travel Agencies Association, Hotel Sales and Marketing Association Inc., and the Philippine Hotel Owners Association.
The malls include the Araneta Group, Ayala Malls, Duty Free Philippines, Filinvest Malls, Greenfield Development Corp. (Paseo outlets), Megaworld Corp., Rockwell Land (Powerplant Mall), Robinsons Malls, Rustan’s Commercial Corp., Shangri-La Mall, SM SuperMalls, Stores Specialist Inc., and Vista Malls.
A number of travel packages are currently being finalized by the Philtoa, with HSMA president Christine U. Ibaretta assuring “over 30 hotels” as participants.
Although the mainland Chinese are major shoppers, the loss of the market due to the current travel ban hasn’t deterred the DOT from pursuing the shopping festival. Boncato said, “there are still other markets we can attract such as Korea, Japan, homecoming Pinoys (balikbayan from the Unied States), and Asean.” Members of the Asean include: Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Myanmar, and Laos.
He said local products will be pushed to the foreign visitors like local handicraft and jewelry.
The DOT has targeted foreign visitor arrivals to reach 9.2 million this year.