(FILE) Immigration officers man their post at the Naia Terminal 1. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / LYN RILLON
MANILA, Philippines — The number of inbound travelers decreased by 81 percent amid the pandemic due to several travel restrictions, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said Saturday.
“Mababa po ngayon ang number of travelers natin. Nakita naman po natin na during the entire pandemic period, halos mga 70 percent po ang binaba ng dami ng mga pumapasok at mga biyahero sa Pilipinas lalo na po siguro nitong pag-usbong nitong Delta variant,” BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said during the Laging Handa public briefing.
(The number of travelers now is lower. We saw that during the pandemic, the number of arrivals decreased by almost 70 percent especially because of the Delta variant.)
“Bukod po sa ongoing travel restrictions not just in the Philippines but also in the different countries worldwide, lalo pong bumababa ang ating international travel,” she added.
(International travel decreased not just because of travel restrictions in the Philippines but also in different countries worldwide.)
But in a later text message to INQUIRER.net, Sandoval clarified that the 70 percent reduction in international tourism arrival was from worldwide data, citing the World Tourism Organization.
She noted that there was a total of 16 million arrivals in the Philippines in 2019 before the pandemic started, but this decreased by 81 percent to only over 3 million in 2020.
On Saturday, Malacañang also said that travel restrictions on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, aimed at stopping the further spread of coronavirus variants, will be lifted on September 6.
However, the pandemic task force adopted “yellow and red list” classifications for different countries and territories, which determine the rules and restrictions that will be imposed on travelers depending on the risk classification of the country they are coming from.