Baguio urged to accept vaxxed visitors to jump-start economy

BOAT RESCUE Workers of boat concessionaires at Burnham Park in Baguio City salvage a mermaid-themed boat after heavy rain on Monday night caused the man-made lake to overflow. Most of the boats have been idle since late July as leisure travel remains suspended in the summer capital. —VINCENT CABREZA

BAGUIO CITY—Fully vaccinated tourists should be allowed to enter Baguio under strict supervision to ensure that the revival of the local economy is not impeded, the city’s tourism council told the local government.

The tourism council passed a resolution on Oct. 4 urging Baguio to lift the prohibition on leisure travel for fully vaccinated tourists and visitors with negative rapid antigen test results or reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test results within 48 hours from travel.

Pointing out that tourism frontliners who will serve visitors are themselves inoculated, officials of the tourism council said enough screening measures were in place to bring back tourists without taxing the healthcare system.

Job losses

The resolution was signed by tourism council chair Gladys Vergara, Baguio Country Club manager Anthony de Leon, and representatives of market traders, artists, and members of the academe.

All tourists are required to register and pass a screening process through Baguio’s Visita (Visitor Information and Travel Assistance platform) where they submit their booking arrangements and itinerary for proper monitoring.

Guests also need to undergo medical triage at the borders, and must present their QR (quick response)-coded tourist pass, the group said.

“The presentation of vaccination cards and negative RT-PCR results would be the perfect balance [in order to] revive the economy while not unduly burdening the health-care [infrastructure],” the tourism council said.

It added: “Stringent lockdowns have wreaked havoc on the economy resulting in loss of jobs and livelihood.”

The prolonged quarantines have frozen most tourism operations in the Cordillera, said Aldrin Bahit Jr., the chief statistical analyst of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in the region, during an Oct. 5 online briefing.

Bahit said the travel restrictions had affected 29,482 tourism workers and employees of allied enterprises like tour agencies and tourist transport organizations.

Tourist expenditures help understand how best to recover from the pandemic, he said.

PSA data showed that the combined expenses of foreign and domestic visitors generated a steady growth of tourism revenues from P9.25 billion in 2016, P10.62 billion in 2017, P12 billion in 2018, and a slight drop to P11.10 billion in 2019 before the pandemic struck.

Ifugao drew the most foreign visitors in 2019, where 44.6 percent (P630.58 million) of that year’s foreign tourist expenditures (P1.41 billion) had been recorded. But Baguio drew 75.17 percent (P8.3 billion) of the combined tourist expenditure of P11 billion that year.

Mass transportation

But the region should start pouring in more resources on mass transportation and its roads as it rebuilds the tourism sector in time for the full resumption of leisure travel, Bahit said.

Tourists who visited Ifugao, Mountain Province, Benguet, Apayao, Kalinga, and Abra, and Baguio City spent more on transportation, according to an analysis of tourism expenditures from 2016 to 2019.

“Tourism requires accessibility. If a destination is not easily accessible, it will lure fewer tourists … If transportation to these destinations is limited, travel becomes too expensive,” Bahit said. —VINCENT CABREZA