The Wuhan-originating corona-virus expects to have a “vastly greater” impact on aviation and tourism in Asia Pacific than the SARS in 2003, according to the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA).
CAPA said Chinese tourists make up the largest proportion of international visitors for most countries in Asia Pacific and they are also in many cases the biggest per capita spenders.
The aviation think tank also said that air services to and from China have grown many times over.
“As the China lockdown continues and airlines cut back on services, both inbound and outbound tourism has staggered almost to a stop. The impact is already massive. What remains unknown is how long and how widespread the virus’ spread will continue,” CAPA said.
“For several Asia Pacific countries, China has become a vital source of tourism; for Thailand, 11 million, or 28 percent of its international visitors came from China in 2019, and a quarter of its international airline seats were to/from China,” CAPA added.
Countries like Vietnam, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are broadly similarly engaged in the China market.
Sought for comment, Carmelo Arcilla, executive director of Civil Aeronautics Board said the government has yet to assess the impact of the corona virus on Philippine aviation and tourism industry.
“We are looking at the safety of the public first,” he said.
The Philippines has a total Chinese visitors of 1.62 million as of November last year, according to the Tourism Department.
In a statement, the Department of Tourism advised its foreign offices in China to relay to all stakeholders involved in bringing markets to the Philippines on the latest directive by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte to temporarily ban “the entry of any person, regardless of nationality, except Filipino citizens and holders of Permanent Resident Visa issued by the Philippine Government, directly coming from China and its Special Administrative Regions”, Hong Kong and Macau, in order to contain the spread of the novel corona virus (NCov).
The government also ordered the temporary ban on Filipinos from travel to China and its Special Administrative Regions.
“The safety and protection of our citizens thriving in our tourist spots, the employees of the tourism sector, and domestic and foreign tourists alike remain the Department of Tourism’s priority,” Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat said in a statement.
“We call on everyone in the tourism industry to follow these directives until the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Philippine government deems it safe to resume travel to these parts.”, she added.
Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Air Asia also reduced their operations between the Philippines and China.
Cebu Pacific cancelled all flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Guangzhou and Shenzhen from February 2 to March 29, while reducing flights to Hong Kong and Macau.
Air Asia, on the other than, is cancelling selected flights between the Philippines and China until March 1, 2020. These include flights from Manila and Kalibo to mainland China cities (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai), Hong Kong SAR, and Macao SAR.
Philippine Airlines also reduced its flights between Manila and Greater China by over 50 percent starting February 1, 2020.
The Department of Health earlier confirmed the second person with 2019 novel coronavirus acute respiratory disease (2019-nCoV) in the Philippines.
This was the same observation made by Rep. Johnny Pimentel who said that the country’s booming tourism industry will likely take a hit from the slump in the number of Chinese visitors in the months ahead, according to House Deputy Speaker.
“The entire Philippine tourism sector – airlines, resorts, hotels and restaurants, possibly even gaming – is bound to be adversely affected by the sudden decline in the number of Chinese vacationers,” Pimentel said.
“This may well be a case of Chinese travelers sneezing, and the sector somewhat catching a cold,” Pimentel said.
He said that the DOT in particular and the government in general may have to find ways and take steps to help offset the temporary loss of Chinese holidaymakers, Pimentel said.
“All foreign sightseers create a huge demand for local goods and services, and tourism overall contributes in a big way to the broader Philippine economy,” Pimentel said.
Due to the 2019-nCoV scare, the heavily state-regulated association of travel agencies in China suspended all overseas tour groups and flight/hotel vacation packages for Chinese citizens, effective January 27.
China is the Philippines’ second-largest supplier of foreign visitors after South Korea.
Chinese tourists accounted for 21.73 percent of the 7,484,115 foreigners that arrived in the Philippines from January to November 2019, according to the DOT.
The Philippines received a total of 1,626,300 visitors from China in the 11-month period, up 40.20 percent from 1,159,998 in the same period in 2018.
The number of Chinese travelers was just 159,048 shy of the 1,785,357 vacationers from South Korea in the 11-month period.
Aside from Korea, China and the United States, the Philippines’ top suppliers of foreign visitors are Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Canada, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia.
The number of Chinese tourists has soared since 2016 on account of warmer government-to-government relations between Manila and Beijing under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.
The Philippines received 394,951 Chinese visitors in 2015; 675,663 in 2016; 968,447 in 2017; and 1,257,962 in 2018.
The London-based World Travel & Tourism Council said in a previous study that “travel and tourism was the largest sector in the Philippines in 2018 at 24.7 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, contributing $82 billion to the country’s economy.”