Boracay loses P165M from China travel ban

ILOILO CITY, Philippines – The most renowned island of Boracay in Aklan is now reportedly losing around P165 million from booking cancellations by more or less 7,000 Chinese nationals almost three days after China issued a travel ban.

The travel ban came after a Chinese teenager, who worked in a family-run store, was kidnapped in Zamboanga.

Regional Director Helen Catalbas of the Department of Tourism-Region 6 said more than 20,000 room reservations, from September 13 to March next year, from DOT's accredited hotels and resorts were cancelled.

"The given figure is partial only because the data were taken only from our accredited hotels and resorts but we are still tracking down the records of those hotels that are not accredited by the department to know exactly how many reservations were cancelled," Catalbas said.

Catalbas said she is still expecting the increase of cancellations in the next few days as long as the ban continues. "We are just hoping to resolve the problem in the international level very soon. In our level, we assured tourists that Western Visayas is secure, peaceful and nothing to fear," she said.

The tourism official said Chinese nationals are the 2nd tourist target of Western Visayas, next to Korean nationals.

From January to July this year, a total of 110,380 Chinese arrivals was recorded in the region, while a total of 250,000 Chinese tourists were recorded last year, Catalbas said, adding however that Koreans were still the top tourist arrivals in the region, particularly in Boracay.

The DOT-6 recorded a total of 130,851 Korean tourists that arrived in Western Visayas last year.