Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 28) — Many travel agencies are taking blows over the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, since a lot of Filipinos who are planning to travel to other Southeast Asian countries are canceling their trips.
A number of Chinese tourists who are supposed to fly to Boracay from this month to May, have also canceled their flights.
“In a nutshell, the expectation of losses is very huge, the impact is very significant as far as travel and tourism is concerned,” said Philippine Travel Agencies Association President Ritchie Tuano.
National Association of Independent Travel Agencies President Robert Lim Joseph also said that people are worried and are expected to cancel travel.
“Anyway, the airlines are there because there are fears already. They do not know who they are beside with so they don’t want to take the risk,” he added.
There have been no confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the Philippines, but infections have been confirmed in neighboring countries namely Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
According to Bureau of Immigration data, 22 percent of the 7.5 million visitors to the Philippines between January and November last year were Chinese tourists.
Despite these reports, the Department of Tourism released a statement saying that they are optimistic that Philippine tourism will be resilient.
“We will undertake strong initiatives with industry partners in pursuit of the goals set in the National Tourism Development Plan,” said the Department of Tourism in a statement.
