The Philippines may soon reopen its doors to fully vaccinated foreign tourist from China, Japan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and other green-listed countries, Malacañang announced on Friday.
In an online news conference, Acting Presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF) issued Resolution 149 allowing the implementation the new measure will be finalized.
“There are just a few things we need to tweak, but the reason why we are announcing it is because we are putting the entire world in advance notice that we would eventually open up our shores to tourists from green-list countries,” Nograles said.
The newly appointed IATF spokesman noted that the measure aims to boost recovery of the country’s tourism industry, which were among the hard-hit industries by international travel restrictions amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Last week, the IATF included the following countries in its “green” list: American Samoa, Bhutan, Chad, China (Mainland), Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Falkland Islands (Malvinas), Federated States of Micronesia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China), India, Indonesia, Japan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Montserrat, and Morocco.
The other green list countries are Namibia, Niger, Northern Mariana Islands, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Paraguay, Rwanda, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sint Eustatius, South Africa, Sudan, Taiwan, Togo, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
In a related development, Nograles also said the IATF also issued Resolution 149-A containing the new guidelines for countries in the red, yellow and green list, which will take effect starting Monday.
Among the salient points of the said issuance is it clarification that Filipinos or foreigners, merely transiting through a non-green list countries/territories/jurisdictions shall not be deemed as having come from or having been to said areas if they stayed at the airport the whole time.
Reacting to the IATF statement, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat said, “Allowing tourists from green countries or territories that have the majority of its population vaccinated and with low infection rate, will greatly help in our recovery efforts—increasing tourist arrivals and receipts among others. This move will likewise aid in bolstering consumer confidence, which is a large contributor to our gross domestic product or GDP growth.”
She noted other countries have already reopened their borders to international leisure travelers. “Our Asean neighbors like Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia also did the same. We believe that it is also time for us to reopen our borders for inbound tourism as a way towards full recovery,” she stressed.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) is also currently working with the Small Technical Working Group on Travel on a separate proposal for vaccinated travel lanes or travel bubbles for vaccinated tourists coming from yellow list countries.
There are still ongoing talks on travel bubbles with the governments of Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam, with possible partner destinations such as Metro Manila, Bohol, or Cebu, which host international airports.
Prior to the pandemic, the Philippines welcomed 8.26 million tourist arrivals in 2019, up 15 percent from the previous year. Of the total arrivals in 2019, tourists from China accounted for 21.1 percent, Japan (8.3 percent), and India (1.63 percent).
Image credits: Nonie Reyes