AN initial P15.6 million in revenue has been projected from deals closed between local sellers and foreign buyers at the recently concluded Philippine International Travel Exchange (Phitex) 2020.
In a text message to the BusinessMirror, Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) Chief Operating Officer Ma. Anthonette Velasco-Allones underscored these were preliminary numbers from 20 percent of the 345 sellers as of Sunday morning, and representing 48 actual bookings.
While this does not compare to Phitex 2019, where P117.75 million in revenue was estimated to have been generated between 127 local sellers and 162 foreign buyers, the TPB and its parent unit, the Department of Tourism (DOT), considered last week’s event a success. “The response has been overwhelming despite the pandemic and virtual platform,” Allones said of the business-to-business meetings, which had to be extended to Friday afternoon due to the demand from participants.
There were 1,602 contacts established or an average of 24 contacts per seller, and 544 leads generated on site with 49 out of 68 reported securing leads, or a success rate of 72 percent, she noted. A complete report will be disclosed next week, she said.
Phitex 2020 was the first hybrid MICE (Meetings Incentives Conventions Exhibitions) event, possibly in the world, according to Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat. Held on Panglao Island in Bohol from Sept. 22-24, the largest government-organized travel exchange was able to attract 122 foreign buyers from 34 countries attending B2B meetings online.
“We all thought leisure travel would be first to bounce back [when tourism reopens],” said the DOT chief, “but it looks like MICE might take the lead.” She added “We were able to show that it’s possible for MICE to be undertaken in this period of time [i.e., pandemic]. If everybody stays true to their health declaration, take the RT-PCR test, we can end up with this result, which is 51 people coming in without any [Covid-19] incidents.”
In an online news briefing on Saturday, Bohol Gov. Arthur Yap also said he is looking at Bohol “as a MICE niche, because of the success of Phitex . . . . MICE actually attracts me and intrigues me because you’re talking about bigger control groups. So it might be more workable rather than opening the entire island or the entire Bohol to just anybody who wants to come in.”
He noted that MICE will help create more jobs for locals:“You have 100 rooms in a hotel [booked for an event], that’s equivalent to 100 jobs. And you talk to just one person and establish a relationship.” He added, with such events, chartered flights can be used instead of opening to commercial airline operations.
While Romulo Puyat hoped that Bohol would reopen to tourists before Christmas, Yap declined go on record on such a date until he said, they study the “learnings” from the Phitex event. The local government is in the process of distributing contact-tracing cards to 300,000 families to monitor the movement of its residents to ensure the province remains Covid-free. The contact-tracing cards were pilot-tested among the Phitex participants.
At the closing ceremony of Phitex 2020 on Friday, TPB awarded its top buyers led by Orientours Co. Ltd in the US, BK MICE Destination Management Co.-Turkey, A Travel and Tours-US, Viatges Traveljess Si-Spain, Pt. Bayu Buana Travel Services-Indonesia, The Travel Planners-India, Camera Voyages-US, Funtastic Travel-Australia, Broadway Travel and Tours Pte Ltd-Singapore, and The Net SRL-Italy.
The top 10 sellers were: Gustoavventura Travel and Tours, Mooncake Educational Travel and Tours, White Breeze Boutique Palawan Hotel, JLT Travel and Tours, Ace Hotel and Suites, Mart Ever Travel and Tours Corp., Baron Travel Corp., Southeast Travel Corp., Rajah Travel Corp., and Park Inn by Radisson Iloilo.
“With this year’s theme ‘Phitex Pivots: Business Unusual,’ we sum up the key message we want to impart: we will persevere through this adversity, we will have courage to try something different and tread paths that have not been explored because to keep tourism alive, tourism business has to continue, even in the most unusual ways,” said Romulo Puyat at Friday’s closing ceremony.