A total of 147,145 tourists visited this city in December last year, resulting in revenues for businesses and boosting employment.

“May ilan na establishment na nag-hire ng additional workers para ma-serve nang maayos ang customers nila (there were some establishments who hired additional workers so that they can provide good service to their customers),” said Engr. Aloysius Mapalo, city tourism supervising officers, in a briefing on Thursday.

Mapalo said some employees of establishments have left the city and moved to the provinces promoting the hiring of additional manpower who were unemployed and whose services were needed by the tourism-related establishments.

“Marami ang natulungan ng pagdating ng mga turista noong holiday season (the arrival of tourists during the holidays helped a lot of people). We hope that 2022 will be better in terms of gross receipts,” he said.

Tourism arrival data is obtained from the triage facility of the city, where tourists that obtained a quick response travel permit (QTP) from the city’s online tourist registration portal pass through for verification of documents and for possible antigen tests, before they can proceed to their accommodation.

“Mas marami pa ang dumating kasi may hotels na nakakapag-issue ng QTP at hindi yun kasama sa city statistics tapos may mga naka essential travel din na namasyal na din dahil nandito na sila (There are more who actually arrived because the city’s statistics does not include the QTP issued by hotels. There are also those who came for essential travel but took advantage and already went around the city),” he said.

Mapalo said 113 accommodation establishments established and jointly managed a triage and they are permitted to issue QTPs corresponding to at least 70 percent of their capacity.

He said the Department of Tourism (DOT) computation for tourism receipts or money spent by an individual local tourist per day for an overnight stay in an area is from PHP2,000 to PHP2,500.

Mapalo said for the whole 2021, the city registered 328,000 tourist arrivals, higher than 270,000 tourist arrivals in 2020.

“December talaga ang peak season natin ng tourist arrival (our peak tourism season is really in December),” he said.

In 2019, the city’s tourist arrivals hit 1.2 million which translated to PHP3.84 billion in tourism receipts.

Althea Rosanna Alberto, Executive Assistant IV at the mayor’s office, earlier said the city government explained that Baguio is not close to tourists and it will continue to accept tourists who have already been issued a QTP.

She said the local government, through the online tourism registration portal, will also continue to issue QTPs not more than the 4,000 daily arrival capacity of the city’s triage and the private accommodation establishments that can issue permits.

She again urged the public, not just the establishments and tourists to continue observing the minimum public health standards and abide by the guidelines for economic activity to continue in the city.

“We are still on level 2 although heightened, mag-ingat po tayo para hindi lumala ang sitwasyon kasi yun ang dahilan na maraming activity ang maipagbabawal at mawawalan ng pagkakakitaan ang mga tao (let us be careful so that the situation will not worsen as it will lead to the stoppage of activities and again people losing income). Let us be careful, cooperate and take care of ourselves so that we don’t get sick,” Alberto said. (PNA)