MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines stands to lose millions of dollars in tourism revenue because of the August 23 Manila hostage-taking incident.

Speaking on ANC's "The Rundown" on Wednesday, Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA) President Paz Alberto said flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) alone has reported 1,100 cancellations from Hong Kong and China in the past week.

But while the country has lost tourists from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and mainland China because of the hostage incident and the black travel warning, Alberto said tourist arrivals from other countries like India, Europe, Canada and Australia remain healthy.

The key, Alberto believes, is to show tourists the Philippines is a safe travel destination.

In a meeting with the Department of Tourism (DOT) last week, Alberto said there were suggestions to have the Philippine police force trained by the international police on handling hostage situations and emergency cases the country may not be equipped enough to handle.

"One of the suggestions of DOT is that we have a police force dedicated to securing tourists. In tourist areas, we can have a police post and a hotline tourists can call anytime," Alberto said.

Short-term impact

With appropriate measures being taken to raise the confidence of the international community, tour operators are hopeful the tourism industry will recover from the impact of the hostage crisis within the next two months.

"We're hoping it will be short term, a month or two as long as the government and private sector promote the Philippines as a safe place to visit," Alberto said.

"What we want to manage is an immediate resolution of this case, and for government to show the world and assure them this is an isolated case and measures are being done, we are safe and they have much to see here."

"Filipinos, by nature, are very resilient and we hope we can recover from it. It's also a national tragedy for us but we have to move on and continue promoting our tourism industry," added Philippine Tour Operators Association public relations officer Clang Garcia.

Garcia noted that 98 out of 112 travel buyers from the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific or 90% of participants have pledged to attend the Philippine Travel Exchange this month to visit the country and do an immersion tour to promote the Philippines in their countries.
 
Shared marketing role

Tour operators said the government and private sector must work together to intensify efforts to promote Philippine tourism, improve marketing perception and ensure the safety of visitors.

"We just have to handle marketing perception in terms of selling the Philippines again. We're intensifying marketing efforts to make sure we surface from this crisis," Garcia said.

Part of the job, Alberto added, is improving the country's airports, hotels and infrastructure.

Tour operators expect 3.3 million tourists to visit the country this year, what would translate to 3.3 million jobs for Filipinos who rely on tourism for their livelihood.

With tourism traffic into the country increasing every year, and with an aggressive tourism promotion campaign, it is possible to draw as much as 8 million tourists in 6 years, Garcia and Alberto said.