THE recent long weekend was a missed business opportunity for hotels, restaurants, transport groups, food suppliers, handicraft, and other tourism enterprises, a malaise that may possibly continue unless Philippine Airlines and the PAL Employees Association settle their dispute soon.
”Domestic and foreign tourists need assurance that they will enjoy their travels, let alone that they would get to their destinations and ride on return flights on schedule,” said Alma Jimenez, president of the Tourism Congress. “The Visayas and Mindanao accommodations are ready and available but would there be a crowd?”
”We hope that the PAL-PALEA controversy will be resolved in time for the October 29-November 1 weekend,” she said.
Jimenez said resolution of the PAL-PALEA dispute would give the tourism players in the Visayas and Mindanao a chance to employ more people and earn more revenues during the long weekend than if the market were thinned out by unpredictable transportation.
During a regional consultation with Tourism Congress members last Saturday, Mindanao hotels estimated a loss in booked business of about 30% overall and the drop in occupancy rates of 50 to 70%. The tuna industry said they are losing as much as P50 million a day, the corresponding revenue value of a daily shipment stock of about 20-26 tons of tuna that did not reach its designated buyers because of cancelled flights.
Jimenez said that Tourism Congress members voiced the need for pre-planned cooperative arrangements among the various tourism sectors and enterprises in anticipation of emergencies and contingencies that may have adverse effects on tourism businesses in general.
“Tourism is always one of the industries where adverse events and disasters create the most negative impact but the industry has rarely been a formal partner in the processes that address these situations. The private sector plans to take a proactive role in managing these situations and help mitigate risks to the businesses and the economy”, Jimenez said.
”Domestic and foreign tourists need assurance that they will enjoy their travels, let alone that they would get to their destinations and ride on return flights on schedule,” said Alma Jimenez, president of the Tourism Congress. “The Visayas and Mindanao accommodations are ready and available but would there be a crowd?”
”We hope that the PAL-PALEA controversy will be resolved in time for the October 29-November 1 weekend,” she said.
Jimenez said resolution of the PAL-PALEA dispute would give the tourism players in the Visayas and Mindanao a chance to employ more people and earn more revenues during the long weekend than if the market were thinned out by unpredictable transportation.
During a regional consultation with Tourism Congress members last Saturday, Mindanao hotels estimated a loss in booked business of about 30% overall and the drop in occupancy rates of 50 to 70%. The tuna industry said they are losing as much as P50 million a day, the corresponding revenue value of a daily shipment stock of about 20-26 tons of tuna that did not reach its designated buyers because of cancelled flights.
Jimenez said that Tourism Congress members voiced the need for pre-planned cooperative arrangements among the various tourism sectors and enterprises in anticipation of emergencies and contingencies that may have adverse effects on tourism businesses in general.
“Tourism is always one of the industries where adverse events and disasters create the most negative impact but the industry has rarely been a formal partner in the processes that address these situations. The private sector plans to take a proactive role in managing these situations and help mitigate risks to the businesses and the economy”, Jimenez said.
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