Cebu City (12 December) — Tourism Secretary Joseph Mari “Ace” Durano remains confident that the country will achieve its projected 10 percent increase on national traffic of foreign arrivals.

Department of Tourism (DOT-7) Regional Director Patria Aurora Roa conveyed Durano’s optimism in a news forum today despite the travel advisories issued by the US, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia against traveling to the Philippines due to a terror threat.

We are used to travel advisories, every year we get travel advisories warning citizens of particular countries from refraining to visit the Philippines, according to Roa.

The terror threat has been named as the reason behind the Asean Summit’s postponement to January next year but national organizers refuted this and stressed the major consideration was the physical safety of the Heads of States that were due to arrive the same time Typhoon Seniang would hit Cebu.

“As far as I can remember, in all my 13 years of service here, I have never received any report from the hotel sector that their bookings have dropped even by 10 percent in spite of the travel advisories,” Roa quoted.

Roa said there was an 18 percent increase of foreign tourist arrivals last year.

While it is true that the hotel industry has been affected with the summit’s postponement as accommodations have been cancelled, the same hotels have promised to still accommodate the Heads of Governments and other foreign delegations when the summit pushes through in January, Roa declared.

In order to offset the cancellation of bookings due to the summit’s postponement, Roa said the hotels are now offering promo rates and opening their doors to their regular and new clients that they turned down before due to the summit.

Roa also said in spite of the travel advisories, there was no cancellation of bookings after the 15th where Koreans remain Cebu’s top market followed by the Japanese. Although Japanese tourists are easily disturb by travel advisories, Roa said there was no cancellation of chartered flights from Japan to Cebu after the summit. (PIA-Cebu/FCR)

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