MORE destinations in Northern Luzon are considering reopening to tourism, following in the footsteps of Baguio City, which will be accepting tourists from the Ilocos region by October 1.
Benguet and Ifugao are also looking forward to tourists, after meeting with the governors of both provinces on Monday, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat told the BusinessMirror. “They are just finalizing what tourist sites will be open,” she said, adding that Sagada, a popular destination especially among foreign tourists, may also follow suit. “For now, they [Sagada] still want a 14-day quarantine,” she said, but in the meantime, the municipality will also be identifying the sites that will accept tourists.
She also revealed that Baguio City will be pilot-testing the use of SD Biosensor’s Covid-19 antigen test for some visitors, alongside the RT-PCR test, still considered by the World Health Organization as the gold standard in testing for the novel coronavirus. “Results of the antigen test is in 15 minutes,” she said, compared to the RT-PCR where results can take at least 5 to 8 hours.
WHO had approved the pilot-testing in Baguio City, which will help determine the accuracy of said antigen test from South Korea. “If it proves to be accurate, then we can use it in our tourism destinations,” said Romulo Puyat, who has been trying to reopen travel sites all over the country to help hasten the recovery of the tourism sector.
The DOT chief was in the summer capital of the Philippines to officially launch on Tuesday the city’s first online visitor management system. “We are introducing a new digital monitoring system that will be used to keep track of visitor activities to protect our tourists and the communities within the new green corridor. This will also complement the stringent inter-provincial border controls designed to safeguard the public’s health and safety in CAR [Cordillera Administrative Region] and Region 1 [Ilocos],” she said in her opening remarks.
Dubbed the Baguio Visitor Information and Travel Assistance (Visita), the digital platform will have the following features:
• A Visitor Web Dashboard for account registration, travel registration, payments, QR coupon reading, and dispensing travel advisories and tourism information;
• A site portal for the profile registration of tourism establishments, services and sites. It also hosts the check in/out mechanism and centralized contact-tracing database;
• An administration interface, for real-time monitoring of visitor profiles and sites visited; setting registration requirements and visitor criteria; data analytics and advisories; and
• A mobile app that receives real-time notifications, and can be used as a travel guide and for assistance.
The sites that will be open in Baguio to tourists from the Ilocos Region are Burnham Park, Wright Park, Mines View, Dominican Hill and Botanical Garden, said Romulo Puyat.
In a virtual presser following the launch of the Visita app, Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong said only 200 visitors per day will be allowed in the city from partner provinces in Region 1, the so-called Reef to Ridge travel corridor. The other provinces—Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Pangasinan and La Union—will accept 50 tourists per day.
200 visitors
“We had a workshop and we figured that 200 visitors is a very manageable level. But we are dynamic; we want as many tourists to come to Baguio, so we can increase or decrease that number. We’re still on a learning curve; once we learn from it, that’s the time we can open to tourists from the NCR [National Capital Region], 4-A [Calabarzon] and others,” said Magalong.
He added, “We’re still trying to synchronize technical issues in our system,” to explain the implementation of the travel corridor being moved to October 1. Magalong had earlier thought of reopening Baguio in September.
Visitors to Baguio are supposed to hire tour operators to the various tourist sites, so the local government can easily monitor the guests’ whereabouts, in case contract tracing is needed.
Ilocos Regional Director Jeff Ortega said most of the activities that will be offered by the provinces will be “outdoor activities. The people have been cooped up in their homes for a long period, so they want to go out.” For instance, visitors to Ilocos Norte can go to the Paoay sand dunes; in Ilocos Sur, they can go to the heritage town of Vigan; in La Union, there’s surfing; and in Pangasinan, there are beaches and the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Manaoag.
The tourism chief noted that if the corridor plan proves to be successful, the Department of Tourism can proceed with the phase two, or an expanded travel corridor, that will include Regions 2 (Cagayan Valley) and 3 (Central Luzon).
Phase 3, Romulo Puyat said, “will allow subnational inter-travel, and is scheduled to begin three to four months after the initial launch [of the previous phase].”
Image credits: Mau Victa