Hospitality industry pushes for unified travel requisites

CEBU, Philippines — The hospitality sector in Metro Cebu is banking on the help from the three local government units (LGUs) to save their ailing industry.

According to Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Association of Cebu (HRRAC) president Carlo Suarez said the survival of hotels now lies in the cooperation of LGUs in Cebu City, Mandaue City and Lapu-Lapu City to jointly come up with unified travel prerequisites to spur domestic tourism.

In an interview with Suarez, he said that the varying health protocol requirements in the three cities, which delay the process to travel especially for inbound travellers discourage interest to travel to Cebu, although airlines are now opening commercial flights.

“We are already bleeding. We have been bleeding since the onset of the pandemic. I hope by this time, LGUs will extend their hands to the hotel sector by unifying their health protocol requirement,” said Suarez, whose family-owned hotel, Cebu Grand Hotel, is now temporarily shut down due to the market dry-up.

About 90 percent of the hospitality businesses in Cebu albeit open are only trying to survive. In fact, industrywide occupancy rate is at single digit.

Suarez reiterated that the varying travel restrictions by LGUs are pulling the hotel businesses down, and is not at all helping the economy.

“The problem now is the LGUs’ implementation of travel restrictions is costly for travels and time consuming,” he noted.

No matter how the national government, through the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the private sector pushes to promote domestic tourism, if LGUs do not cooperate, it will be dangerous for the tourism industry in Cebu and the thousands of people working for the sector.

Suarez clarified that there is nothing wrong with implementing stricter or tighter travel restrictions, but what the hoteliers are asking for are unified requirements to be implemented by the three cities in Cebu.