Tanay tourism ‘bleeds’ after road accident

Fifteen people died after this bus, carrying students on a school trip, crashed in Tanay town in Rizal province in February. Local officials describe the accident as the worst in Tanay’s history. —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

TANAY, Rizal—Local tourism in this town has yet to recover two months since a bus accident left 15 people, mostly students on a school field trip, dead.

“It was painful not only to those who lost their loved ones but also to the industry. The [local government] bled,” said Rebecca Labit, regional director of the Department of Tourism (DOT) in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon).

“Technically, everybody was affected,” she said.

On Feb. 20, a tourist bus carrying 62 passengers figured in an accident as it was negotiating a steep portion of the Magnetic Hill in Barangay Sampaloc.

The driver and a school official died along with 13 students of the Bestlink College of the Philippines in what local officials said was the “worst” road accident in the town’s history.

Tanay Mayor Rex Manuel Tanjuatco said local hotels and resorts lost 60 percent of bookings “in just a snap.”

Popular for its trekking sites, natural caves and heritage churches, Tanay suffered a major blow to its tourism arrival, which used to average at 3,000 a week.

As an offshoot of the accident, the Department of Education had imposed a ban on school field trips, affecting educational tours and travel agency operators.

More than 500 operators and employees of travel agencies and community tour guides and representatives of the Tanay government joined a 1-kilometer “Walk for Unity and Safety” on April 5, urging concerned agencies to lift the ban.

“There is an urgency. The longer [the ban] stays, the longer people, not only our drivers and employees but even those in the communities, are out of jobs,” said Rowena Erquiaga, founder of the Association of Committed Tour Specialists.

A tour operator, Erquiaga said they have had “zero clients” since the Tanay accident.

Another agency also lost at least P2 million after local airlines refused to refund ticket bookings for a client that backed out, she said.

Erquiaga said more than 1,000 travel and tour agencies operated in Metro Manila and in the Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog regions.

In Calabarzon alone, only 80 agencies are currently accredited by the DOT.

Labit said the DOT was mounting a National Educational Field Trip Summit in June to address the operators’ concerns in relation to the ban.

But in the meantime, tour operators, she said, should “look closely” at existing policies.

“I think you have an inherent obligation to provide training for your personnel,” she told tour operators.