The Philippine Travel Exchange (PhiTEx) takes a whole new dimension this year. It is not just about selling and buying tourism packages but it is also aimed at helping spur the people’s patriotic duty to persevere through adversity and find ways to pave the way towards tourism industry recovery.
This year’s edition of PhiTEx, a blend of actual and virtual participants, is towards the direction of helping a place restart its tourism industry.
It is critical to restart the tourism industry as a way to restore jobs and livelihood to millions of Filipinos, Tourism Sec. Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said in her keynote speech on Sept. 23, 2020, at the opening ceremonies of the PhiTEx in Bellevue Hotel in Panglao.
She said that from the period of January to August 2020, there were only 1.3 million recorded arrivals from abroad compared to 5.5 million arrivals, in the same period in 2019.
Visitor receipts declined from P326.15 billion in 2019 to P89.05 billion in 2020, she said.
She reiterated how tourism has become a vital cog in the engine that drives economic development of the country.
More than the economic indicators contributed by tourism, the most critical indicator is the ability of the sector to generate employment and livelihood.
Puyat said that her department estimates that there are about 4.8 million Filipinos employed in tourism related industries who may have been displaced or who are still retained in their jobs but remain affected with the Covid crisis.
To address the tourism industry‘s decline, the Department of Tourism (DOT) led the formulation of the Tourism Response and Recovery Plan (TRRP) together with the Tourism Congress of the Philippines and with the guidance of the World Bank, she said.
The TRRP is designed to provide a holistic roadmap to support the stakeholders through specific measures to provide assistance to tourists and travelers affected by the pandemic; enhance the capacity of the tourism workers; sustain tourism businesses and employment through financial assistance; formulate policy support to help financial and business solvency; support tourism investment promotion; develop and enforce new normal standards; and identify development of tourism corridors to start tourism activities.
Moreover, Sec. Puyat commended the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) headed by its chief operating officer Ma. Antoinette Allones, for looking for solutions that kept this year’s PhiTEx alive, despite the pandemic challenge.
The PhiTEx has gathered 124 buyers and 350 delegates from 121 companies all over the Philippines, Puyat mentioned in her speech.
Puyat joined the PhiTEx opening ceremonies virtually, and delivered her speech via an audio presentation.
GOV. ART’S TAKE
Gov. Arthur Yap calls this year’s PhiTEx as an “extraordinary” event.
“PhiTEx 2020 is extraordinary because this buyers-and-sellers meet is being held at the time of the greatest global pandemic that our generation has seen,” the governor said in his speech.
He calls the event as extraordinary because it shows the courage and resiliency of the Philippine tourism sector.
“Despite the pandemic, PhiTEx2020 has brought together a severely impacted industry that has lost millions of jobs and billions in revenues, yet rises today here in Bohol, in defiance of the odds, to reopen its doors once more and reclaim our lives from fear and uncertainty,” the governor mentioned in his welcome address during the event’s opening ceremonies.
The governor stressed, “With Covid, tourism takes on a new leaf: slower and yet more decisive.”
He continued by saying, “A slower tourism to make us appreciate the fragility, beauty and the interdependence of our ecosystem; and a decisive tourism, because there can be no doubt now that we now need to make a clear stand on the sustainability, care and resiliency of our world. Bohol stands proud to have been chosen to host PhiTEx 2020 and along the way, finds its bearings itself.”
“Like you, we are charting our course among the rough tides of those who want us to remain closed, and others who want us to reopen our economy now,” the governor said in his speech.
Yet the path towards tourism recovery is being done with the need to ensure the safety of the visitors and the local community through having testing facilities available, contact tracing applications in place, and contactless transactions a regular feature of Bohol tourism very soon, the governor bared.
In his speech, the governor mentioned, “Only when we can be sure that we can safeguard the health of visitors and locals alike will we attempt to open up tourism in measured steps, one day at a time.”