/ 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.
/ Posted on 14 January, 2021 18:06
Philippine tourism players persist in battling for a uniform set of travel requirements to be implemented nationwide so as to facilitate ease of travel, noting that varying regulations across destinations stymies post-lockdown domestic tourism recovery efforts.
For instance, some local government units (LGUs) require travellers to undergo a rapid antigen or PCR test for Covid-19, with validity periods of the result varying across destinations. As well, some destinations do not require travellers to serve a quarantine period, while others do, with the quarantine period varying from three to 21 days.
Destinations across the Philippines have reopened to domestic travellers since late 2020; locals visiting the Temple of Leah in Cebu City in September 2020 pictured