/ Posted on 18 January, 2021 10:08
Troubles from a challenging 2020 are carrying forward into the new year, dashing hopes for post-pandemic travel recovery. In this second instalment of a three-part series on the Asian travel agent community, we check in on Hong Kong and the Philippines.
By Rosa Ocampo and Prudence Lui
The Philippines
Travel agencies are among the most beleaguered in The Philippines’ travel and tourism industry, as more than 50 per cent of them have closed or reduced their scale of operations last year in the face of continuous inbound and outbound travel restrictions.
The harrowing numbers in 2020 sum it up: an 84 per cent drop in foreign visitors to only 1,323,956, from 8,260,913 arrivals in 2019, and a corresponding 83.1 per cent decrease in visitor receipts to 81.40 billion pesos (US$1.7 billion) from 482.16 billion pesos over 2019.