Boracay continues to attract tourists

Tourist arrivals in Boracay Island in Aklan continue to rise with local tourists outnumbering foreigners. At the end of the first semester of last year, tourist arrival to the island was already 76.30 percent of the total of the previous year.

Aklan Gov. Jovencio Miraflores said the average growth rate is in the vicinity of 14 percent per year, "the locals outpacing the foreign tourists," he said as he claims that the Boracay experience is an expression of President Arroyo’s drive to revive local tourism.

According to the governor, in June last year, tourist arrivals reached 22,444 with 78 percent of them local tourists and only 22 percent foreigners.

"Arrivals by foreign tourists started to pick up in 1999 after a deep slump in 1997 and 1998," he said, adding that the turnaround in 1998 was sustained with impressive performance until 2002.

He explained that local tourist arrivals suffered a big cut in 2001 but "2002 figures indicate a return in interest by the locals," he said.

Boracay continues to draw the highest tourist attraction in the province as the island has made a name for itself in the international vacation destination.

From the time Boracay earned a name in the world resort market, the small island carried the ball in the economic development of Aklan province that in the first months of last year Boracay Island earned over P693 million.

To resort owners and operators, the challenge in getting the tourists interested in Boracay, specially foreigners, is getting tougher every year.

Club Panoly in the island’s upscale side and the first to sell the island in the international market has lined up events to attract both local and foreign tourists to the island.

It has offered site to the government-run casino to operate in the island not unlike PAGCOR casinos in tourist zones in Central Luzon.

Resort operators see the entry of the government run casino in the island as an added attraction that will bring in the foreign tourists as is the experience in Mimosa resorts at the Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga.

Even the local government, the Municipality of Malay, strongly endorsed the invitation for PAGCOR to set up playing stations at Club Pinoy.