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By Kristina Maralit October 24, 2022
PRESIDENT Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. encouraged Filipinos to start visiting the country's tourist sites to help speed up the recovery of the local tourism sector.
In his weekly vlog posted on his official Facebook page Sunday, the President said tourism is one of the country's major job generating and revenue earning industries.
"I will not stop encouraging you all to visit our beautiful tourist spots," he said in Filipino.
"Let's start this Undas (All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day). One reason why I declared October 31 a special non-working holiday is so that we will have more time to spend with our families and plan our vacation," he said.
Tourism can revitalize the economy because improving existing tourist spots and developing new ones will open more businesses, which in turn will provide more local employment opportunities, he said.
Marcos said he has tasked concerned government agencies to step up efforts to improve accessibility to areas with a high potential for tourism.
"The more that they are accessible, the more people will be enticed to visit and pour in money to the provinces," the President said.
Last week at the Philippine Tourism Industry Convergence Reception, Marcos pledged all-out support for efforts to boost the tourism sector.
Citing the report of Tourism Secretary Cristina Garcia Frasco that the Philippines has attracted around 1.6 million foreign travelers since the country eased the screening of arriving passengers last February, he directed various government agencies to work closely with the Tourism department in building new infrastructure, rehabilitating and improving existing tourist destinations and discovering new ones, upgrading sea and airports as well as public transportation, and securing tourists.
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Ease of travel and better facilities, the President pointed out, will lure more local and foreign tourists alike to see the sights which will generate not just jobs and income for Filipinos but also "reintroduce" the Philippines to the rest of the world.
Marcos reiterated that "now is the best opportunity" for the country to be a tourism hub with its vast, rich natural resources and best asset — the Filipino workforce.
"We in the Philippines have been so fortunate to have been born to this very beautiful country. And even more so, we have been so lucky to be born to such beautiful people. This is something that we can show the world, and immediately, this will come to help on the preoccupation. At the very beginning, we always talk about jobs, we always talk about employment," he said.
"We must immediately do all that we can to make sure that these assets that the Philippines has must be used to bring jobs to people, good jobs to people, to bring visitors to our country," he added.
Marcos pledges to reboot tourism
To further streamline the processing of returning overseas Filipinos and foreign travelers, the government has replaced the One Health Pass (OHP) with the much simpler eArrival card.
Before the eArrival Card, travelers had to register for the OHP a few days before their arrival and accomplish the electronic Health Declaration Checklist (eHDC) on their day of departure.
Unnecessary information fields such as the traveler's occupation and educational attainment have been removed to speed up the registration process.
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Tourism-related fields were likewise significantly cut by half — from 20 items under the OHP to now less than 10 items in the eArrival card.
Upon providing their travel details, personal information, health declaration and vaccination details on the eArrival Card website: www.onehealthpass.com.ph, travelers will be issued with a unique QR code which they will present to Bureau of Quarantine officers at their destination airport in the Philippines.
