61 tourism workers in Samar receive first dose of COVID-19 vaccine

TACLOBAN CITY – At least 61 tourism workers from various hotels and tourist destinations in Samar have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday.

The workers, coming from the towns of Paras and Basey and Catbalogan City, were administered with the vaccine voluntarily, Karina Rosa Tiopes, regional director of the Department of Tourism (DOT), said.

Tiopes stressed the need for workers to receive the vaccine for their protection and even their guests.

“This is one way of boosting the confidence of our tourists to visit other places. They want to visit a tourist destination or (tourism-related) accommodations whose workers are vaccinated,” she said.

As part of their effort to vaccinate tourism workers, Tiopes appealed to local governments in the region to provide a certain amount of their vaccine for tourism workers.

She hoped that all workers in the tourism sector would be vaccinated by the end of the year.

Of the 21 accredited accommodation establishments like hotels and resorts employing more than 450 workers in Eastern Visayas, 93 percent of them have either received the first jab or are fully vaccinated.

And of the 389 other hotels and resorts, which have more than 4,100 workers and have yet to be accredited by the DOT, 27 percent of them were fully vaccinated, while 16 percent have received the first jab.

Tourism Secretary Bernadette Puyat, in a statement, appealed to tourism workers to have themselves vaccinated against COVID-19.

“With the ongoing rise in positive cases caused by the Delta variant, there is no room for hesitation or doubts. I urge all tourism workers who are eligible, to avail of the vaccine when they arrive,” she said.

“We are poised for the reopening of tourism and, in order to boost confidence in traveling and receiving guests amidst the pandemic, tourism workers need to be vaccinated to minimize the health risks of their guests and the communities where they reside,” Puyat added.