MANILA, Philippines?Tourist arrivals from Hong Kong are expected to decrease by 10 percent as a result of the Aug. 23 hostage crisis that led to the death of eight tourists from the Chinese territory, a Malacañang official Thursday told reporters.

Citing an assessment by Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said the hostage crisis ?may lead to a reduction of, at least, 10 percent in terms of the volume of tourist arrivals from Hong Kong.?

There were more than 100,000 tourist arrivals from Hong Kong in 2009.

Hong Kong has advised its residents not to visit the Philippines.

Reports said the tourism industry could suffer some P370 million in the aftermath of the bungling of the hostage crisis.

Philippine Airlines (PAL) itself suffered losses of P15 million because of the hostage tragedy.

In a statement, the country?s flag carrier said its losses were based on 1,100 canceled bookings from Hong Kong and other parts of China.

Speaking to reporters in Davao City, Domingo Duerme, PAL vice president for Mindanao, said on Wednesday the ?situation is just temporary and will normalize in the future.?

Duerme said PAL suffered rebookings for its Davao-Hong Kong flights. There were no cancellations but passengers moved their flights to later dates, he said.

?The effect of the Quirino Grandstand hostage bloodbath is not severely felt in Davao City,? Duerme added.

PAL said that despite the losses and negative travel advisories, it would continue to mount regular flights to Hong Kong.

Duerme said PAL still considered China its biggest market.

Goodwill

Coloma said the government was hopeful that more Hong Kong tourists would visit the Philippines after a Philippine team investigating the botched hostage rescue shall have concluded its work.

?We?re hoping that as the investigation winds down, as we are able to present the findings to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, to the Chinese government, that there will be a better understanding on both sides of what happened, and there will be space and time for goodwill and friendship to be rebuilt and strengthened,? he said.

Bad picture

The hostage crisis has painted a very bad picture of the country abroad, a representative of the European Union to the Philippines said Thursday.

?I think an event of that nature happening anywhere in the world certainly casts a very dark cloud over the image of that country,? Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, head of the European Commission delegation to the Philippines, told reporters.

MacDonald said ?bad things? such as the one that befell the Chinese tourists in Manila could happen anywhere in the world.

He said he was confident that the Philippines would overcome this negative image once good things started to come into place, or when the government shall have put in place measures to deal with this kind of crisis.

He said the European Union was looking forward to hearing the results of the investigation. Reports from Norman Bordadora and Cynthia D. Balana in Manila; and Judy Quiros, Inquirer Mindanao