Cautious opening: Utmost safety

An end to the COVID-19 pandemic seems far beyond the horizon, but the tourism industry of the Philippines is dedicated to ensuring a phased reopening of the islands to offer utmost safety and hygiene to potential international travellers through the GREEN Corridor initiative.

Department of Tourism (DOT) Philippines has developed the GREEN Corridor Initiative (GCI), its flagship domestic programme to spur tourism recovery and response.

The development of green corridors plays an important role in maintaining regional biodiversity, improving environmental quality, offering economic resilience opportunities, protecting heritage and culture, and supporting the jumpstart of the economy to restart tourism activities in the new normal. “The creation of travel corridors has been a key component in the resumption of tourism in some of the country’s destinations,”  says Tourism  Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat. The programme has been implemented in several of the archipelago’s islands.

While the Philippines is presently opening the country for tourism only to its domestic populace, this staggered approach to re-opening is only a surety of the country’s objective to keep tourism safe and allow travellers to be confident of safety & hygiene when touring the country.

Puyat adds that while the operational guidelines for the GCI are still being ironed out, the identified tourism products will be based on their readiness and quality, guided by the development standards espoused in the National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP) 2016–2022 and the Tourism Rapid Assessment (TRA).

A bottom-up or participatory approach will also be used in identifying the areas of development in the project. “The technology will be able to assess the carrying capacity of identified tourism sites and attractions. In effect, tourists will easily be informed about tourist flows using this digital platform, which will alert them whenever the chosen tourism site is already available to accept tourists,” she says.

The Philippines, still closed to foreign tourists, is preparing for a well-tested opening. Presently, arriving fully-vaccinated nationals are required to quarantine only for seven days instead of 14, and not required to undergo the RT-PCR or swab test. All hurdles in the system will be ironed out before the country opens to tourism, ensuring foreign tourists are confident of travelling to the Philippines.