New Puerto Princesa airport seen to lure 2-M visitors a year

MANILA, Philippines - The new Puerto Princesa airport terminals and taxiways, to be designed and built by Korean Kumho Industrial Co. Ltd. for operation in 2017, is expected to attract two million local and foreign tourists each year, thus boosting the city’s tourism and economy.

The current Puerto Princesa airport can only handle 350,000 passengers a year such that when visitor arrivals shot up to 1.35 million in 2013, congestion and tourists’ disapproval found their way in numerous negative blogs on the Internet.

At his State of the City Address Monday, Mayor Lucilo Bayron said the next two years of his first term will produce concrete programs and projects to realize the people’s dreams and aspirations for a “model city of the future” through a holistic development of the local economy, tourism, agriculture, peace and order, people’s welfare, energy, and infrastructure.

The World Heritage site, Puerto Princesa Underground River, will be redeveloped with better facilities for visitors so it can live up to its “outstanding universal value,” along with the Sabang pier, whose landing planks are now slippery, endangering tourists, along with the unsightly tents surrounding the area.   

Bayron said the Tourism Infrastructure and Economic Zone Authority has pledged P50 million to design and build the Sabang terminal building, and the architectural and business plans will soon be presented to TIEZA chief executive officer Mark Lapid and Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez.