DOT pushes e-visa for Chinese, Indian travelers

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Tourism (DOT) is lobbying for the government to issue electronic visas to travelers from China and India, two of the world’s most populated countries.

“We must explore the provision of electronic visas (e-visa) as a way of addressing the ‘bottlenecks’ to the Philippines’ efforts to offer itself to tourism, especially for travelers from China and India, which are considered important markets,” said DOT Sec. Christina Garcia-Frasco.

While around 1.5 million Philippine visas were given to Chinese nationals in 2019, the agency learned the Philippine consular offices in China have reduced accepting visa applications to only between 60 and 100 a day, she pointed out.

“If we are to target two million Chinese coming to the Philippines – and which is the desired target of the Department of Tourism – then we would need to issue 6,818 visas per day for a total of 1.8 million visas in a year, which is not too far off from the 1.5 million issued in 2019,” Frasco emphasized.

She also warned the country could “lose over $2.51 billion in revenues if the difficulties in obtaining visas is not immediately addressed,” as well as risk reduced flights from China due to low passenger turnout and expensive tour packages.

Meanwhile, Frasco revealed the Philippines is the only country “that presently does not provide the convenient electronic visa for Indian nationals.”

She said 58 percent of Indians visiting the Philippines are repeat travelers. Therefore, Frasco underlined the government’s need to “continue the efforts to sustain and increase their entry by exploring travel mechanisms, primarily an e-visa system, that would make travel seamless.”

She raised the concern of e-visas for Indian and Chinese nationals before Justice Sec. Jesus Crispin Remulla, Information and Communication Technology Sec. Ivan John Uy and officials from the DOT, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Presidential Management Staff and Bureau of Immigration.

DFA Undersecretary Henry Bensurto Jr. pointed out the cap imposed on visa issuance for Chinese nationals was due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also assured the agency “is one” with the DOT on its proposal.

Uy also declared support for the initiatives of the DOT and DFA.

Last year when the country reopened its borders to foreign tourists, the country welcomed a total of 51,542 Indians and 39,627 Chinese nationals, making them the country’s top eighth and 10th tourist arrivals.

In 2019 before the pandemic hit the world and forced travel bans, China was the Philippines’ second top source of tourists with 1,743,309 arrivals.

Also, a total of 121,124 Indians visited the country.