With renovated Caticlan airport, 3-M Boracay tourists eyed annually

AKLAN, Philippines  – TransAire Development Holdings Corp., a subsidiary of San Miguel Corp. (SMC), expects three million tourists to visit Boracay, the country’s prime vacation spot, every year beginning 2015 as President Aquino inaugurated here yesterday the renovated Caticlan airport.

TransAire developed the Caticlan airport under a build-operate-transfer scheme and would operate the airport for 25 years based on the agreement with the government.

The airport was renovated through the Public-Private Partnership and would be fully completed by 2013.

At present, some 700,000 tourists arrive in Boracay via the Caticlan airport, where TransAire would build a hotel complex with 5,000 budget rooms, a jetty port for seamless transfers, a convention center with 25,000-seat capacity, a commercial center with shopping malls, bars and restaurants and a market. 

In his speech, the President said the renovations should result in a sudden 30-percent increase in the number of passengers arriving in the airport.

With the continuing developments at the airport, and if every tourist spends $1,000, for food, transportation and souvenir items, excluding lodging and hotel, not less than P322.5 billion will be added to the economy of Aklan province, the President said. 

SMC modernized the airport by putting two X-ray machines, additional luggage area, and a computerized check-in counter as well as provided ambulance and fire trucks. State-of-the-art scanners bolster security at airport, the President said.

The airport can now serve nighttime flights like big airports in the country because of the new airport’s navigation and runway lighting systems put up by SMC. 

Aside from developing the airport, TransAire has proposed to rename the Caticlan airport as the Boracay airport although the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines has yet to approve it.

Among those who joined the President during the event were Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, incoming Transportation and Communications Secretary Manuel Roxas II, SMC president Ramon Ang, Aklan Gov. Carlito Marquez and Malay town Mayor John Yap.