Travel agents slam new passport processing rules

WHILE a travel agency group continues to fight for the usual daily passport processing allocation, another problem arises which an executive said will add more inconvenience to the agencies.

A new policy requiring travel agencies to first be members of national organizations before they are allowed to process passports of their clients is unnecessary and unreasonable, said Robert Lim Joseph, National Association of Independent Travel Agencies (Naitas) chairman emeritus and president of the newly revived Network of Independent Travel Agencies (Nitas).

Joseph met with representatives of travel agencies in Cebu last week.

dot ACCREDITATION

He said that travel agencies, especially those running a small operation and are not members of a national organization, are already allowed to be accredited by the Department of Tourism regional offices.

“Why do the travel agencies need to be accredited in a national organization when the DOT, the government agency mandated to oversee tourism and its related establishments, allow accreditation through their regional offices?” Joseph asked.

He said this would only make the situation for operators of small travel agencies more difficult.

Joseph reiterated that the travel agencies has already been too limited in terms of the number of passports they can process in a day at the Department of Foreign Affairs offices.

ALLOCATION

“In the past, there is an allocation of at least ten percent of the daily passports processed a day for the travel agencies or about 50 passports daily. Now travel agencies can only process nine passports every week. Some travel agencies already did not hire liaison officers because the cost of keeping one is more than the amount they can earn from processing passports. With this new policy, we fear that travel agencies might eventually stop offering this service and lose more income,” said Joseph.

He added that he feared that the small travel agencies might eventually close shop.

“The national government has been talking about inclusive growth. That can be solved by encouraging small entrepreneurs but with what is being done, it will actually put more pressure and inconvenience on the small players and discourage them from growing and creating jobs for the community,” he said.

Joseph said he plans to meet with the local government officials in Cebu including the Cebu Provincial government to ask for their support in asking DFA to take down all these restrictions.