Philippine agents mull action to bring back HK tourists

At press time, Philippine tour operators were scheduled to meet with Department of Tourism (DoT) secretary Alberto Lim to formulate a recovery plan for Hong Kong and China markets, which are the most affected by the August 23 hostage drama in Manila.

Philippine Straits, one of the country’s top handlers of Chinese groups, has lost 90 per cent of its business for September and October. President Johnson Cheng said he would propose that the DoT lobby the relevant authorities to waive visas for Chinese nationals for six months.

“If Chinese tourists would like to come to the Philippines, this would make it easier for them,” Cheng said.

Ramifications of the tragedy came in fast and furious. Most bookings until end-October from Hong Kong and China have been cancelled, including those for the usually lucrative Chinese Golden Week holidays, this year from October 1 to 7.

Image Travel vice president marketing Emy Malate said all Hong Kong bookings for September, whether for Manila, Cebu, Boracay or Palawan, had been cancelled. When interviewed by TTG Asia last week, Malate said bookings from October to December had yet to be affected but she expected more cancellations to come in.

Blue Horizons Travel and Tours has seen short-term cancellations from Hong Kong and southern provinces of China. CEO, Alexander Stutely, said: “Some agents in these destinations have cancelled all bookings with us that were scheduled for arrival between August 24 and mid-October. We have not seen any cancellations for bookings with arrival dates after October.”

For Philippine Straits, most of the cancellations came from Shanghai and the northern parts of China. “Beijing has been a bit better and around 30 per cent of the bookings for Boracay and Cebu are still holding. But all travel that would have passed through Manila is 100 per cent gone,” said Cheng.

More disturbing for Cheng was losing some 2,000 passengers for the October Golden Week period.
He has had to cancel three charters (one more than last year) that would have brought in 122 Chinese tourists per flight over the Golden Week holidays.

“This year’s numbers for the Golden Week would have been three times better than last year. We were on an upswing. Even August, traditionally a low season for Boracay, was very good this year,” Cheng lamented.

Philippine carriers are also feeling the pinch. Philippine Airlines has reported the cancellation of 90 Manila-bound groups, comprising around 558 tourists from Hong Kong, Beijing, Xiamen and other points in China over a one-month period. This is expected to cost the airline more than US$167,000 in revenue. Cebu Pacific lost some 50 bookings on its Hong Kong-Manila route.

But the impact of the hostage crisis appeared to be contained within regional markets as bookings from Europe, the US and the Middle East remained largely untouched.

“The high season (for Europe) starts in September and there have been no cancellations so far. Nevertheless, I will be updating all my travel partners on the security situation and stressing that this was a isolated incident,”

said Pedro Young, tourism services director of Marsman Drysdale Travel. Nine tourists from Hong Kong were killed in an 11-hour hostage crisis that ended in bloodshed as Philippine police stormed the tourist bus being held by a gunman, a former ex-cop desperately seeking reinstatement in the police force.

Sourced=ttgasia