DoT urges PAL to open direct Cebu-Europe flight

The Department of Tourism (DOT) is now trying to convince the Philippine Airlines (PAL) to open up direct flight from Cebu to Europe, in order to maximize the huge European market.

DOT-7 regional director Patria Aurora Roa said Cebu needs quality tourists that could generate high revenue for the industry, not just the quantity.

However, despite the potential of Cebu to attract the European travelers, the transportation accessibility of Cebu to Europe remains to be a problem.

According to Roa, PAL has flight entitlement to fly from Cebu to Europe. The only access of Cebu to the European traveling market is through Qatar Airlines, which flies from Cebu to Doha, the Middle East is a gateway to Europe.

"We have to have direct flights from Cebu to Europe. We hope we could connect via Bangkok [Thailand]", Roa said.

With the shortage of resort rooms in Cebu, Roa said high-end market should be prioritized for marketing, such as Europeans, Russians, Japanese, and other high spender tourists.

Although the Chinese market and other Asian nationals are the primary target of Cebu, Roa said there is a need for Cebu to re-activate a parallel marketing blitz in the high-end market, saying Cebu can not accommodate the mass Chinese market for instance.

She said the Chinese market cannot afford a US$45 dollar room rate, offered by high-end resorts here. But for European and Russian markets, this rate is easily affordable.

For the meantime, in order to start attracting these high spender markets, charter flights are being pushed from Russia and Europe.

Earlier, British ambassador to the Philippines Peter Beckingham reiterated his call for the Philippines to take extra effort in promoting Philippines to the growing EU market, as it is twice the size of the United States market with 450 million consumers.

"The Philippines has some way to go [in terms of tourism]," Beckingham said however, he stressed that strong advertising campaign is needed especially in London.

The Philippines, he said has the best, fantastic scenery for travel, this has to be capitalized and attract sizable number of European tourists.

"The Philippines is a great place for the European backpack market, like young students from colleges and universities," he said.

Although, DOT is focusing its marketing efforts to draw more tourists from the neighboring Asian countries, like Korea, Japan, and China, Beckingham expressed optimism that the Philippines can become a vacation haven for Europeans if enough promotions will be done.

Thailand is getting an average of 750,000 British tourists annually, the Philippines on the other hand, has managed to attract an average of 70,000 British tourists a year.

"Thailand attracts 10 times the number of British tourists, so there must be scope for stronger links, especially the backpacker market," the Ambassador said.