A congressman on Wednesday advised the Department of Tourism to launch an aggressive campaign to perk up domestic tourism to offset the estimated P20-billion loss of the tourism industry as a result of lower foreign visitor arrivals at the onset of the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak.
Deputy Speaker Luis Raymand Villafuerte said the department should entice domestic tourists to visit “hotspot” destinations, such as those for extreme sports and ecotourism.
Villafuerte said that many Filipinos have visited a lot of countries and tourist spots abroad but have not been to Philippine “hotspots.” It is time, he said, that instead of going abroad, where travel have become cumbersome because of precautions put in place to control the spread of the virus, local tourists should see what is in store for them in the Philippines.
“Enticing more Filipinos to visit Philippine tourist spots will help offset the losses from lower tourist arrivals expected by industry stakeholders in this year’s first quarter at the least from the temporary travel ban on China, which is our biggest tourist market after South Korea,” Villafuerte, representative of Camarines Sur’s Second District, said.
Villafuerte, who represents the Second District of Camarines Sur, also expressed support for President Rodrigo Duterte’s imposition of the temporary travel ban after the Department of Health confirmed the first two confirmed 2019-nCoV infection in the country, the second of whom died while being treated at the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila.
Tourism Congress of the Philippines president Jose Clemente III was quoted in media reports that he expects at least P20 billion in revenue losses as the temporary ban on visitors from China will mean lower tourist arrivals over the January-March period alone that will affect the business of hotels, tour operators and restaurants, among others.
According to the same report, tourist from China numbered 1.63 million last year, accounting for 20 percent of tourist arrivals in the Philippines, or the biggest foreign group after visitors from South Korea who numbered 1.79 million tourists.
Clemente said the sector has also been experiencing cancellations by tourists from South Korea and Japan since this new coronavirus strain broke out.