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Friday, March 29, 2024

PH air panel seeks talks with Canada, HK, four others

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The Philippine air panel plans to hold air talks with six countries this year in a bid to expand flights in these major sources of tourists for the country, the Civil Aeronautics Board.

“We are asking Australia, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, India and Papua New Guinea,” CAB executive director Carmelo Arcilla said. 

Arcilla said these countries were growth areas to expand for Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Air Asia Inc. 

He said the Philippine air panel was still waiting for the availability of the countries to hold bilateral air talks.

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The Philippine air services negotiating panel is composed of officials from the CAB, Department of Tourism, Departments of Transportation and Foreign Affairs, as well as from Clark International Airport Corp. and representatives of local airline companies.

Data from the Department of Tourism showed that Japan, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and India were the country’s major sources of tourists last year. 

Tourists arrival from Japan grew 9.1 percent to 584,180 last year from 535,238 tourists in 2016, while arrivals from Australia expanded 3.3 percent to 259,433 from 251,098. 

Arrivals from Canada reached 200,640, while Hong Kong and India registered 111,135 and 107,278, respectively. 

Tourists from Papua New Guinea rose 4.8 percent to 8,110 last year from 7,738 in 2016.

Other major tourists market for the Philippines are Korea, China, US, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia.

The Philippines in 2017 registered a total 6.62 million tourists, up 11 percent from 5.97 million tourists in 2016.

The government aims to attract 7.5 million foreign tourists this year.

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