Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat said Tuesday the Philippines is ready to reopen the country to international travel beginning Thursday, Feb. 10, to fully vaccinated tourists from visa-free countries.
“These are exciting times for Philippine tourism. We have been ready since 2020; with the significant dwindling of new COVID cases, the Department of Tourism (DOT) can now push forward with our plans and programs for the full recovery of the Philippine tourism industry,” she said at the Kapihan Sa Manila Bay virtual forum.
This development came after the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) recently approved the DOT’s proposal to allow the entry of fully vaccinated tourists from the 157 countries that have visa-free arrangements with the Philippines.
The task force also scrapped the color-coded classification system of countries based on their COVID-19 status to facilitate the recovery of the long-suffering industry.
“Allowing the entry of these international travelers is a welcome development that will lead to growth in the travel and tourism sector, the restoration of lost jobs, the generation of much needed revenue for tourism-related enterprises, tourism communities and the government, plus many other benefits that will be felt by the entire tourism value chain,” she said.
Puyat noted that fully vaccinated Filipino nationals and foreign tourists are exempt from the 5,000-passenger arrivals cap set by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and its One-Stop-Shop (OSS).
Meanwhile, according to the DOT National Capital Region (DOT-NCR), 418 hotels serving as quarantine facilities were 68 percent full, with 37,348 rooms out of a total 55,150 occupied as of Feb. 7.
These hotels cater to the unvaccinated travelers completing their quarantine period, long-staying guests, overseas Filipino workers ready for departure, and business processing outsourcing employees.
As many as 76 quarantine hotels have submitted letters of intent to shift to regular hotels and cater to leisure tourists.
“I am excited about the prospects of a healthy rebound in tourism for a good number of reasons: the high vaccination rate among our tourism workers, the public health safeguards and guidelines that have been put in place and the number of new tourism circuits that have been developed,” Puyat said.
As of Feb. 4, 2022, 92. 51 percent or 317, 892 out of 349, 534 tourism workers have received their COVID-19 jabs. She said tourism destinations with 100 percent vaccination rate among its tourism workers include Baguio City; Aurora; Palawan towns Coron, El Nido and San Vicente; Puerto Princesa City, and Camiguin Island.
DOT offices are also facilitating the roll-out of booster shots for eligible tourism workers, Puyat said.
On a regional basis, the NCR registered the highest coverage for tourism workers at 99.91 percent.