WAITING FOR TOURISTS Resort, hotel and restaurant owners on Panglao Island in Bohol province have been waiting for the return of tourists to revive the local economy devastated by the pandemic. — LEO UDTOHAN
MANILA, Philippines — The province of Bohol lost P15 billion in revenues during the last eight months of community quarantine that was imposed to stem the spread of the new coronavirus, affecting over 200,000 workers, Governor Arthur Yap said Friday.
In an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel, Yap said that the local tourism industry alone suffered a “very big hit” due to quarantine restrictions that limited business operations and the movement of people in the province.
“In Bohol, the revenue streams are basically only from OFW income and from tourism and services, so if you look at our provincial income accounts we are looking at services standing at 75 to 78 percent of our economy in terms of revenues generation,” he said.
“If you put that to peso numbers, then we are possibly looking at a hit of about P15 billion in revenue streams that were hit in the last eight months affecting more than 211,000 to 220,000 Boholanos,” he added.
According to Yap, about 40 percent of the over 200,000 workers in the province have actually lost jobs.
Yap said the provincial government has provided assistance to transport operators since transportation is necessary to reopen the tourism industry in the province.
“In the tourism industry, we tried to give food assistance especially to transport operators and at this point in time we are considering another round of assistance for transport operators because these are the ones that were really gravely hit,” he said.
“We want to save their fleet because what tourism sector are we going to reopen if we do not have a transport sector to support the tourists coming to Bohol?” he added.
Bohol is set to reopen its doors to domestic tourists starting November 15.
Currently, the province only has 81 active cases of COVID-19, according to Yap.