Make it easy for tourists to come to the country, says Lim

MANILA, Philippines - If we really want more tourists to visit the Philippines, we should make it easy for them to come here. We should make it easier for them to avail of our products and services.

This was one of the recommendations of outgoing Tourism Secretary Alberto Aldaba Lim during his recent press conference in Malacañang.

Aside from the pocket open skies policy in secondary airports that has encouraged airlines to come in, Lim said that we should also allow visa upon entry for countries with great market potential.

“Visa requirements could be relaxed for targeted markets like China and India. G-7 countries like Australia and America are already doing this among member nations,” said Lim.

The DOT chief added that we should find ways to make the cost of doing business in the country cheaper. Among these could be abolishing the common carriers’ tax and shifting at the airports so that carriers do not have to pay overtime fees for government employees providing customs, immigration, and quarantine services. He said the overtime pay of immigrations and customs personnel are based on 1940 and 1957 laws respectively, and should be updated.

Hopefully, lower operational costs and higher profit margins encourage airlines to increase their frequency here.

Danny Corpuz, Undersecretary for Tourism Planning and Promotions, supports Lim on this and believes that visa upon entry will redound to more visitors for the country citing the experience of Thailand where 240,000 Laotians crossed their borders (in a year) when they were given four-day visas upon entry. He was also told that the Thais found out that they gained a lot more when they issued Laotians multiple-entry visas.

Corpuz also shared an experience where a local airline had a tour group composed of 400 tourists on an eight-hour stop over from India. The airline official was asking that they be allowed to bring the big group to nearby Resorts World so they can spend their precious dollars there on food, shopping and entertainment instead of just sitting at the airport for eight hours until boarding time.

Unfortunately, our present policies require them to pay P700 in terminal fees again once they return to the airport from nearby Resorts World so the tour group opted to just stay inside the airport. 

It is small things like this, says Corpuz, that when properly addressed and rectified with the support of all other related government agencies can create the proper environment for more tourists to visit the Philippines.

“It is our mandate to bring in tourists in great numbers. These are some of the ways we can achieve that. Now, the fear of immigration officials about these visitors overstaying can be addressed by them because that is their mandate. We need the help of other agencies if we are to succeed,” said Corpuz.

All these recommendations are part of the tourism roadmap submitted to Malacañang.