Restarting tourism industry

Most of the larger Southeast Asian countries have declared their plans for limited reopening in the fourth quarter, except the Philippines, Teneo, a New York-based consultancy reported two weeks ago.

Starting Nov. 1, tourists from 46 countries who are fully vaccinated with a WHO-approved vaccine can enter Thailand without need of quarantine, the report pointed out, as long as they have a PCR test before flying to the country and another one after arrival. They must, however, stay one night in a hotel while waiting for their results.

Should they pass the arrival PCR test, they can then travel anywhere without restrictions. Travel health insurance worth $50,000 is also required. Thais traveling to the “safe” countries will also be exempt from the quarantine requirements upon their return.

The confidence of Thai officials in relaxing measures stems from their tourism experience with their Phuket sandbox, considered a model for the rest of the region.

Thailand reopened Phuket in July, allowing tourists to roam around the island without being confined to their hotel rooms. After 14 days on the island, they can then travel freely to the rest of Thailand.

Indonesia, according to Teneo, also launched its own Bali sandbox, but the uptake has been limited. Unlike Phuket, vaccinated travelers must be confined to their hotel rooms for five days.

Thailand’s experience over the next few weeks will be watched closely. A generally positive result in Thailand could pave the way for other countries in the region to also consider expanding their sandbox programs by early next year.

In the fourth quarter, Teneo reports that Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam are planning their own sandbox reopenings. Indonesia has reopened Bali; Malaysia- Langkawi; Viet Nam - Phu Quoc island; Cambodia- Sihanoukville, Koh Rong island, Sakor resort.

Euromonitor, a global market research company, is saying tourism spending will get back to pre-pandemic level only by 2024. It also thinks the Asia Pacific region has the greatest potential for growth.

“In the short term, this region is really struggling to reopen… Many countries are erring on the side of conservative caution, resisting reopening to non-essential travel for health reasons.”

For the Philippines, despite a lingering hesitancy to open up, some destinations like Boracay have started to welcome domestic tourists. Domestic travelers are also now more able to freely travel anywhere in the country, even if some local governments insist on stringent rules.

The Department of Tourism has worked over the past few months to make sure tourism workers are fully vaccinated in preparation for gradual opening. DOT is also offering a limited number of subsidized PCR tests.

“We want to make sure that when we accept our tourists, we are not only accepting vaccinated individuals, but we also have to make sure our tourism workers are vaccinated so that they are safe,” DOT Secretary Berna Romulo Puyat told a recent summit of tourism ministers at the World Travel Market 2021 in London.

But our problem is, we still have silly rules like capping the number of arriving passengers at NAIA at just 4000 passengers daily. Since the limit is about 70 passengers per flight, flying to Manila is uneconomical.

The limit also caused problems for PAL and Cebu Pacific in their Dubai to Manila flights. Because Emirates was limited to just 70 passengers, aviation authorities in Dubai retaliated by also limiting PAL and Cebu Pacific to 70 passengers in flights to Manila.

Our authorities also limited each Saudia flight arriving at NAIA to 168 passengers, making Saudi officials impose the same cap on PAL. In the end, it is our OFWs who suffer long waits for flights. It also unnecessarily delays the financial recovery of our airlines.

Funny thing is, if the flights to Dubai originate from Davao or Cebu, not Manila, and returns via Davao and Cebu as well, our carriers are allowed by UAE authorities to fully load the planes. An Airbus 300 normally used on those flights can carry at least 250 passengers or more depending on configuration.

NAIA is restricting arrivals supposedly because they don’t have enough people to process passengers given the many COVID related requirements. Sounds like a bad excuse. Emergency hiring of more workers can be easily done given the enormous pandemic budgets of many government agencies.

From my experience at LAX, there are no such bureaucratic rules requiring staff to handle. Nobody even asked to check my PCR test.

Everything is done online prior to boarding a flight so passengers go straight to ground transportation after clearing customs and immigration. Life can be made simple, but that is against the interest of our bureaucrats.

Presidential adviser Joey Concepcion has been urging our government to simplify arrival rules for North American arrivals as a gesture of reciprocity. Joey is thinking of the potential of fully vaccinated balikbayans coming home for Christmas.

But I doubt if this proposal will move. It is easy to suspect that so much money is being made by the red tape, testing by a favored laboratory, hotel quarantine, and transportation requirements for the rules to be simplified and rationalized.

Where do all these leave our tourism industry? Short answer: still nowhere.

Nice to talk of shifting to high value, low density, low impact travel, which in all honesty is neither here nor there, for so long as the entry and movement of tourists are marred by red tape and unreasonable rules that only we have.

I think our tourism officials have done about as much as can be done. It is time for others in government to open their minds to science-based rules.

OCTA Research fellow Fr. Nicanor Austriaco showed data indicating that arriving international passengers account for only 1.8 cases of the average 6,000 new cases at the time under study.

That cap on NAIA arrivals is so ridiculous we must be the laughing stock in international aviation. I suspect the Emiratis are toying with us by imposing the ridiculous 70 passenger cap on PAL and CebPac after we imposed the same limit on Emirates. They wanted to show us the absurdity of it all.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @boochanco