THE Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) is hoping that the government will “do whatever they can” to ease the entry of foreign visitors to the country.
In a televised interview on Monday, PCCI President George T. Barcelon stressed that Tourism is a “low-hanging fruit” sector. With this, Barcelon said the Philippines should keep up with other countries in attracting tourists.
“I just like to stress also, which we have been … part of the advocacy is Tourism. It’s a low-hanging fruit sector and now we’re sort of gone over the hump for the Covid-19 pandemic and we’ve seen other countries where tourism has boomed,” the head of PCCI said.
“So I hope that the government will do whatever they can to ease the visit of foreign visitors. Let’s go easy on the requirements and health protocols and also get whatever requirements for them to enter the country. That would help,” Barcelon added.
Speaking for the Tourism industry at the plenary at the 48th Philippine Business Conference and Expo (PBC&E) which was organized by PCCI, Benito C. Bengzon, Jr., Executive Director of Philippine Hotel Owners’ Association, said earlier that the Tourism industry is unshakeable amid the weakening peso.
“For inbound, this is good because with the stronger dollar, then the purchasing power is stronger, so you normally see direct correlation between the movement of inbound travelers when foreign currencies are stronger than the peso,” Bengzon stressed.
On the other hand, however, he said, “Of course, it works the reverse for Filipinos who are traveling outbound, it has the reverse effect.”
Bengzon also urged the government to make sure that the arrival experience of foreign tourists “is as friendly as possible.”
“First thing that we have to bear in mind is that the Philippines is an archipelago so 99 percent of foreign tourists enter the country through different airports, so this is where the importance of airports comes in,” he added.
Bengzon underscored the importance of restoring the flights to pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, on the marketing side, he said “this is really what the [Department of Tourism] DOT as the lead agency would have to work on; we have to expand our marketing and promotions footprint across different markets.”
Data from the Tourism department shows that from February 10 to October 16, international arrivals reached 1.77 million, of which 1.27 million were foreigners and 495,723 were overseas Filipinos.
On Monday, BusinessMirror reported that local travel and tour operators recorded a surge in demand from foreign travel buyers, who are interested in booking more trips to the Philippines for their clients.
In a news statement, the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) said its Philippine Travel Exchange (Phitex) 2022 tallied some P172.6 million in business leads in just two days last week, which TPB COO Margarita M. Nograles noted as the biggest negotiated sales generated by Phitex in all its years.
Phitex is the biggest government-led trade event in the country organized by the TPB.
Image credits: Aaron Favila/AP