Keeping channels open for talks

Our border control authorities are bracing for the heavy traffic of travelers flocking to airports with the Christmas holiday season. According to our Bureau of Immigration (BI), the agency anticipates this year’s volume of holiday travelers coming in and out of our country to be another rush to the airports. After all, the fastest mode of travel is still via airplane.

The BI anticipates more than 110,000 travelers per day during this year’s holiday season. The agency recorded an average of 53,000 people arrived while an average of 43,000 people departed from the Philippines during the Christmas weekend in 2023. In fact, Immigration Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado estimates this year’s arrivals and departures could “exceed” similar figures in 2019 when it averaged 55,000 daily arrivals and 47,000 daily departures.

This was the period before the COVID-19 pandemic and before the Philippines closed down all its borders.

A few years after the pandemic was declared over, it has been an uphill climb for the numbers of foreign tourist arrivals in the Philippines. The country’s tourism and its downstream industries – from travel and tour agencies, to hotels, resorts, restaurants, transport and other industries dependent on tourism – suffered the most during the pandemic period. Given the many economic multipliers of the tourism industry, our country’s economy shrunk to its lowest and even reached negative growth.

It was hence a tall order for the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) to turn the wheels of the tourism industry into full gear. This task is principally upon the shoulders of the Department of Tourism (DOT) headed by Secretary Christina Garcia-Frasco. As a Cabinet member who heads a national agency that is a vital cog in the economic wheels of the country, Frasco must live up to the expectations of PBBM.

Since she took over the DOT, Frasco noted with optimism our country’s tourism numbers have gradually but surely been climbing up. The DOT recorded a total of 5,350,857 international guests visiting the country from January to Dec. 1, 2024. Thus, the DOT chief was very elated after a series of additional tourism-boosting measures were being put in place.

Just last week, PBBM signed a law that will give non-resident tourists a refund of the value-added tax (VAT) on local goods they bought. Under Republic Act 12079, non-resident tourists may claim a VAT refund for goods personally purchased at accredited retail outlets, provided the goods are taken out of the Philippines within 60 days and meet a P3,000 minimum transaction requirement. Officials have said the law would enhance the country’s competitiveness as a tourism and shopping destination and promote local products. The measure is expected to raise tourist spending by about 30 percent.

To further attract foreign visitors and tourists, the President approved the recommendation of the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) to launch a nationwide “Shopping Festival Philippines” to coincide with the upcoming New Year’s celebrations to provide incentives to international visitors, encourage higher spending and raise tourism revenue.

During the same meeting, PBBM reportedly welcomed the PSAC proposal to relax visa access to American, Japanese, Australian, Canadian, Schengen, United Kingdom (UK) and Singapore visa holders. During their bimonthly meeting at Malacañang Palace, Sabin Aboitiz, lead convenor of the PSAC, formally presented to PBBM the latest recommendations culled from the various proposed initiatives worked on by the tourism establishments and related industries. The PSAC consists of business leaders and experts across various sectors, who come up with proposed policies and provides feedback to help the government achieve its economic targets.

According to the official announcement of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO), PBBM agreed conditionally on the need to ease visa access to holders of certain visas to lure more tourists but wants it to be examined thoroughly because of its possible security implications. To carry out the proposed easier visa rules, PBBM ordered a review of PSAC’s suggestion to introduce a digital identification system using biometric data, such as facial recognition or fingerprint, to ensure seamless transaction and secured travel processing.

“It’s just a question really of putting the systems in and getting the hardware, and then slowly educating everybody on how to use that hardware. For me, it’s just a question of adopting the technology and learning how to use it. As I said, everybody else in the world is doing it already,” the PCO quoted the President’s remarks at the PSAC meeting.

For her part, the DOT secretary declared the agency continues advocating for a policy that would “liberalize visa policies coming into and staying in the Philippines, especially that this is one of the biggest hurdles towards attracting international visitors.” The measure has been implemented in “nearly all” countries that are part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and could become a “competitive edge” for the Philippines once implemented, she added.

“The Philippines needs to be able to run an electronic visa system that removes inconvenience and favors ease of access, with the right security measures in place,” Frasco pointed out.

While she conceded it is a challenge to achieve the target for foreign tourist arrivals in the Philippines, Frasco echoed hopes on President Marcos’ order “to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to carry this out at the soonest possible time.”

Per DOT record, the top ten countries of origin of visitors are: South Korea (1,435,571); United States (839,635); Japan (352,63); China (297,604); Australia (231,471); Canada (197,375); Taiwan (196,034); Singapore (143,158); UK (141,967) and Malaysia (88,995).

China used to be the biggest source of our tourists before the pandemic. However, the DFA has reportedly clamped down “for security reasons” the previous courtesy of visa-upon-arrival for Chinese tourists.

Our continuing tussle with Beijing over the unfriendly incidents in the West Philippine Sea and the involvement of criminal syndicates behind the human trafficking of scores of Chinese nationals illegally working in Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) could not be ignored.

But our people-to-people relations with China should not suffer when we have open channels for talks.