There’s high interest in the Philippines as a tourism destination, that’s for sure, but more European tourists will come if only airline fares and hotels were less expensive.
That’s according to Gregor Zajc, general manager of Blue Horizons Travel & Tours, one of eight participating tour operators and Philippine sellers in the recent World Travel Market (WTM) in London. He expressed optimism about the recovery of Philippines tourism and returning to pre-pandemic levels next year, “if hotels and airlines will participate to get EU (European Union) business. The EU tourist is not prepared to pay high price points and compares the Philippines with Bali and Phuket.”
The Philippines also lost its only direct connection with Europe when flag carrier Philippine Airlines dropped its London-Manila route.
At the WTM last week, Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco conveyed the Philippines’s openness to tourism and business opportunities, expressing confidence that, “No doubt our country continues to be a top-of-mind destination, notwithstanding all of the challenges and calamities that we have faced.”
The Philippines has received over 2 million tourist arrivals from February 10 to November 8, defying even revised projections of the local tourism stakeholders. The Department of Tourism (DOT) also estimated visitor receipts at P100 billion from February to September this year. (See, “PHL earns close to $2B from tourist arrivals,” in the BusinessMirror, November 16, 2022.)
Unvaxxed tourists welcome
Addressing tourism ministers and international travel and tourism executives during the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Aligned Advocacy Dinner in London on November 7, Frasco shared some of the steps undertaken by Manila to sustain the positive trajectory seen with the country’s tourist arrivals. These include allowing the entry of unvaccinated travelers who only need to show a negative antigen test result, the launch of winter packages developed with travel agencies, and implementation of a cultural heritage and arts caravan.
According to DOT’s marketing arm, the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB), 211 sales leads were generated from six sellers who participated in this year’s WTM, just a little more than the 207 sales leads from 22 sellers in pre-pandemic 2019. Leads, however, are merely possibilities that sellers still have to pursue to get an actual booking. The TPB isn’t able to track how many leads turn into actual sales.
In the case of Blue Horizons, one of the most active tour and travel operators in the Philippines, which regularly participate in the WTM and other foreign travel trade shows, Zajc said, “We’ve had several leads, but it’s too early to confirm actual bookings. Most of the clients come from the UK, Germany, Romania, and Italy.” But he stressed, “There were more quality buyers this year; the demand is back for the Philippines.”
Most of his clients, a mix of old and new travel buyers, are interested in Boracay Island, El Nido, and Bohol, he said, but they expressed concern that the Philippines was “too expensive, in terms of giving value for money.”
Madrid, Berlin shows
Aside from Blue Horizons, other Philippine sellers included Sharp Travel Service, the Shangri-La Group, Annset Holidays, Atlantis Dive Resort, Avidair Travel and Tours, and AA World Travels. Megaworld International was listed as a participant, but it was not clear if they were selling condominiums or promoting their hotels.
The large tour operators and popular hotels and resorts were noticeably absent, some of them sharing with this paper that it still wasn’t the right time for them to be in WTM London, while others said they were more inclined to join Fitur Madrid in January and ITB Berlin in March.
WTM is among the key travel trade shows that the Philippines attends to sell destinations to more affluent travelers from Europe. According to organizers, over 35,800 people participated in last week’s event, over double the attendance than that of 2021, and thus exceeding expectations.
Buyers were up 25 percent compared to 2021, with key attendees mostly global travel buyers i.e., individuals with direct purchasing responsibility for travel products.
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