Travel Expo projects high sales

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA)  expects sales from the upcoming travel tour expo to rise by a fifth compared to the P310 million generated from last year’s fair as it features new Philippine destinations and more travel deals to attract tourists to the country and encourage domestic travel.

“We are looking at a 20 percent increase in sales from this year’s expo,” Aileen Clemente, PTAA public relations officer and chairperson of the 20th Travel Tour Expo 2013 told reporters yesterday.

She said sales are seen to go up compared to the sales generated from last year’s travel fair as the new travel destinations in the country would be unveiled at the upcoming expo.

Among the new destinations are the Cagayan Special Economic Zone and freeport and Baler in the province of Aurora.

PTAA president John Paul Cabalza said there are 17 resorts in the Cagayan Special Economic Zone, while there are 15 in Baler, making the two locations emerging destinations for tourists.

“The influx of new tourists will be caught by the new destinations,” he said.

Tourism assistant secretary Benito Bengzon Jr. acknowledged, however, that the country’s most popular destination is still Boracay but

a huge number of tourists are also being seen in Cebu, Bohol, Davao and Puerto Princesa in Palawan.

Apart from the launch of new destinations, the fair would also feature more travel deals given an increase in the number of booths or participating companies to 554 this year from 477 last year.

The promotion of new destinations, along with other attractions are seen to help lure more foreign tourists to visit the country.

Data from the Department of Tourism (DoT) showed foreign tourist arrivals to the country reached 4.273 million last year, up 9.07 percent from 2011.

For this year, the DoT aims to attract 5.5 million foreign tourists.

“We expect bulk or close to 25 percent (of the target) will be coming from Korea. The US, Japan and China are our next top markets,” Bengzon said.

He said the introduction of new destinations and the travel deal offerings at the fair would encourage more Filipinos to go overseas and around the country.

“We are not worried about Filipinos going abroad. We see them as our promoters,” he said.

An estimated 30 million Filipinos traveled within the country last year, up from 27 million in 2011.