BAGUIO CITY
-- The city government here bared the number of tourist arrivals in the city
this year is reaching pre-pandemic levels which will be a big boost to gradual
and safe revival of the tourism industry and local economy.
Supervising City Tourism Operations Officer engineer Aloysius Mapalo said from March to the present, the number of tourist arrivals in the city was around 150,000 per month or an estimated 1.2 million visitors during the said period.
He said tourism-related activities the past months contributed in enticing tourists to visit the city and become aware of its rich culture and history as a designated Creative City for Crafts and Folk Arts by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The city tourism officer said the road to recovery of the city’s tourism industry is in the right direction, especially with the lined up activities for the upcoming Christmas in Baguio and the much awaited Baguio Flower Festival, popularly known as Panagbenga, which will likely contribute in reviving the heavily-impacted local economy.
But Mapalo said despite presence of the Visitors Information and Travel Assistance (VISITA) registration platform, the recorded number of tourists by the accredited tourism-related establishments does not reflect the real state of the local tourism industry because of unrecorded, unreported and undeclared day tourists.
According to him, more than 50 percent of the tourists arriving in the city are yet to be reported or declared due to the absence of mechanisms that will require their registration, especially in accredited accommodation establishments if they decide to stay in the city.
In 2019, the city recorded more than 1.57 million tourist arrivals based on data records by accredited accommodation establishments alone while in 2020, the number of tourist arrivals drastically dipped to only 268,000 following e implementation of lockdowns to contain spread of Covid-19 virus.
In 2021, the city government reported more or less 300,000 visitors primarily because of the unstable situation caused by Covid-19 variants that emerged which derailed efforts to revive the local tourism industry. In terms of the financial aspect, Mapalo said the city and local businesses lost over P5.7 billion in income based on the annual tourist arrivals during the pre-pandemic level which showed a rough estimate of more than P7 billion income for both the government and the private sector.
He assured concerned tourism industry stakeholders that the city government is doing its best to sustain the promotion of the city as one of the premier tourist destinations in the country to keep the tourists coming back with their expenditures contributing in reviving the local economy which is now slowly happening.
He expressed hope crowd-drawing events lined up by the city government the coming months will help bring back employment opportunities and economic activities. -- Dexter A. See
Supervising City Tourism Operations Officer engineer Aloysius Mapalo said from March to the present, the number of tourist arrivals in the city was around 150,000 per month or an estimated 1.2 million visitors during the said period.
He said tourism-related activities the past months contributed in enticing tourists to visit the city and become aware of its rich culture and history as a designated Creative City for Crafts and Folk Arts by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The city tourism officer said the road to recovery of the city’s tourism industry is in the right direction, especially with the lined up activities for the upcoming Christmas in Baguio and the much awaited Baguio Flower Festival, popularly known as Panagbenga, which will likely contribute in reviving the heavily-impacted local economy.
But Mapalo said despite presence of the Visitors Information and Travel Assistance (VISITA) registration platform, the recorded number of tourists by the accredited tourism-related establishments does not reflect the real state of the local tourism industry because of unrecorded, unreported and undeclared day tourists.
According to him, more than 50 percent of the tourists arriving in the city are yet to be reported or declared due to the absence of mechanisms that will require their registration, especially in accredited accommodation establishments if they decide to stay in the city.
In 2019, the city recorded more than 1.57 million tourist arrivals based on data records by accredited accommodation establishments alone while in 2020, the number of tourist arrivals drastically dipped to only 268,000 following e implementation of lockdowns to contain spread of Covid-19 virus.
In 2021, the city government reported more or less 300,000 visitors primarily because of the unstable situation caused by Covid-19 variants that emerged which derailed efforts to revive the local tourism industry. In terms of the financial aspect, Mapalo said the city and local businesses lost over P5.7 billion in income based on the annual tourist arrivals during the pre-pandemic level which showed a rough estimate of more than P7 billion income for both the government and the private sector.
He assured concerned tourism industry stakeholders that the city government is doing its best to sustain the promotion of the city as one of the premier tourist destinations in the country to keep the tourists coming back with their expenditures contributing in reviving the local economy which is now slowly happening.
He expressed hope crowd-drawing events lined up by the city government the coming months will help bring back employment opportunities and economic activities. -- Dexter A. See
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