Gov. Arthur Yap proposes the concept of a travel “bubble within a bubble” concept, where Bohol will partner directly with neighboring market sources that are equally successful in containing the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid), and focus the tourism activity in a particular area of the province.
As Bohol’s international airport is located inside Panglao town, the idea is to open a travel bubble within a bubble, which means Bohol will first open Panglao town to tourists. It makes sense to open Panglao town first to tourism, Yap said, because many of the hotels in the province and the international airport are located in the said town.
The governor pitched the concept in a virtual meeting via Zoom application with members of the Philippine Tour Operators Association (PHILTOA) and Tourism Sec. Bernadette Romulo-Puyat in attendance. PHILTOA had its 4th General Membership meeting on Wednesday, August 11, 2020.
The meeting was divided into three (3) tracks and the governor was one of the speakers in track 3. Other speakers in track 3 of the said meeting included Department of Tourism (DOT) Western Visayas regional director Helen Catalbas, DOT Cordillera Autonomous Region regional director Jovita Ganongan, and Baguio City Supervising Tourism Operations Officer Alec Mapalo, a report from Capitol media says.
In his talk in the PHILTOA general membership meeting, the governor said that Bohol is crafting and working on a tourism plan, together with the private sector, towards re-opening the province’s borders to both domestic and international tourists with health and safety of the visitors as top considerations.
He explained that Bohol is planning to open up the bubble first to international or domestic tourists. With the partnership with other areas in the bubble, the travelers may travel directly to Bohol.
“What we are going to do is open that bubble up first to the international or domestic travelers. With this partnership, we can mutually open our borders, allowing tourists who travel directly within Bohol with less stringent Covid-19 travel protocol and also with regard opening up our specific borders to domestic and international travelers,” the governor mentioned in the meeting.
Moreover, Yap said that in order for this to happen, the provincial government is making sure the safety and health protocols are in place, legislated and cascaded to the various local government units (LGU) for dissemination and implementation.
“What is critical right now is we’re working to pass a comprehensive ordinance that sets clear guidelines and procedure for arriving guests prior to their travel. We have to establish a testing system, a holding area while they wait for their (polymersse chain reaction) PCR test result; and determine the period of quarantine to be required to ensure safety in integrating these visitors to the community,” the governor said.
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In his talk, Yap said,” But I think what is most exciting at this point in time are the calls of many in our industry. We heard Mr. Ortega (DOT-1 Regional Director Joseph Francisco Ortega) speak; we heard Mr. Manotoc (Ilocos Norte Gov. Matthew Joseph Marcos Manotoc) speak; we also heard Region 8 out in its voice for following the lead of our very brave and very courageous Secretary Berna (DOT Sec. Puyat) that it is about time that we have to be brave enough and courageous enough to find ways to re-open tourism in our respective jurisdictions in our country.”
In order to realize the goal of re-opening the tourism sector, Yap stressed, “We have to be able to cross two critical thresholds. The first threshold is to be able to convince visitors that it is safe to come to our jurisdictions and the second is to convince our constituents that it is now safe to accept travelers.”
“In line with DOT’s travel bubbles, we will first open up destinations that are safe with zero cases,” the governor in his talk to PHILTOA members said.
“Sec. Puyat has been very consistent- -she is very respectful of the local government’s initiatives in preserving health and she would not like to go into reopening our tourism economy in a very gung-ho fashion that we are going to disregard the safety protocols and probably bring on a surge of infections and this is very much appreciated especially here in Bohol where we have a very conservative constituency.”