A fact-driven plan to reopen tourism and save lives

Most tourism businesses are dependent on people, contacts, and goodwill, as well as fixed assets. All of these are fast-depreciating and cannot just be allowed to wither, then turned back on overnight when times are better. Laid-off employees lose skills and drift into other jobs, buildings get run down, marketing connections disappear. Every day they can’t operate, tourism enterprises bleed money – rent, power, skeleton crews, bank loan payments, insurance, real estate taxes, minimum maintenance. Every day is a step closer to bankruptcy. By the time COVID-19 is solved, or Greater Manila virus-free, there will be little left.

And don’t forget: we are surrounded by aggressive, agile, and determined countries which, unlike us, know the value of tourism. What will happen if we adopt a relaxed Don’t Worry, Be Happy attitude to tourism in the age of COVID-19? By 2022 Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Macau, Guam, and others will have carved up and swallowed the markets and air routes which used to be ours. We will have a very hard time elbowing our way back in.

What does this leave?

It leaves the Fourth Strategy: Re-Launch Philippine Tourism Now, with the Destinations that Are Viable.

Though there is no doubt that travel appetites around Asia have dropped, there is still some demand. Emerging from lockdown, there will be some Asians willing or even eager to travel on holiday. On the other side of the economic equation, supply has not only dropped, but is now effectively zero. Almost all the tourism-receiving destinations in our region still have their borders closed, either out of an excess of prudence (New Zealand), or health necessity (Phuket).

Fortune Favors the Bold. Whoever can reopen first, will get a head start on everyone else.

Here’s the Plan:

1. Combine Mactan, Boracay, Panglao, and any other COVID-19-free areas into a Free Tourist Movement Zone.

2. Connect the key areas in the Zone with each other by air/sea routes, while for now bypassing the hotspots like Greater Manila and Cebu City.

3. Isolate the Zone from the rest of the country with strict border controls (until further notice). Boracay, Mactan, and Panglao are all islands; it is perfectly feasible to isolate them. Spain, for example, is already planning to re-open the Canaries and the Balearics (also COVID-19-free, also islands).

4. Bring in foreign tourists from selected “safe” countries through Mactan International Airport. Upon arrival, they could stay in Mactan, fly onward to Boracay, or transfer to Panglao by fast ferry direct from Mactan (this would require a new route, but in principle there is no impediment).

5. Mindless hysteria aside, the South Koreans, Japanese, etc., tourists who come will be less likely to spread disease than a Filipino construction worker or store clerk (now already back to work under GCQ). Still, the tourists would not be allowed to leave the Zone or go to possibly riskier places such as nightclubs. Hotels would bear the responsibility for monitoring their guests’ movements.

6. By now we know the COVID-19 virus’ principal manner of spread – close personal contact possibly combined with poor personal hygiene (e.g., tightly packed gatherings, Singapore’s migrant workers, Europe’s understaffed nursing homes). Secondarily, the virus spreads through contaminated surfaces. That’s it. Transmission risk is absolutely manageable. Businesses in the Zone must adhere to tighter hygiene controls than the rest of the country, and be geared to trace contacts. Hotels cannot entertain conventions, incentive trips, or banquets; with these exclusions, they will be less crowded than most other kinds of business. Disinfection should be frequent. Employees must wear masks. Restaurants must separate tables or install plexiglass shields. Air-conditioned public spaces should have ionizers or UV lights to lower viral loads. Arriving tourists must disclose their cellphone numbers (to be immediately checked) and hotel arrangements (to be confirmed by showing emails or vouchers to Philippine Immigration).

7. Instead of throwing away P36 billion on loans that will never be repaid, use it to advertise our Re-Launch in key markets such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Shanghai, Beijing – all markets with very few or no new COVID-19 cases in the past weeks. Even Los Angeles is worth a shot, because Hawaii remains closed, and the pandemic is still raging in Mexico.

8. Some of the budget could go to subsidizing airlines so travelers have less fear of catching the coronavirus while in flight. A typical large-capacity but narrow-body aircraft costs $6,000 an hour to fly (this includes crew, fuel, etc.). That’s $60,000 for a roundtrip Seoul-Cebu. For $20,000 we could pay the airline to keep the middle rows vacant, while carrying 120 passengers in the A, C, D, and F seats. The cost of this subsidy per tourist brought in would be $170, reasonable enough in the present emergency, and would build goodwill while attracting favorable publicity. If we were to allocate P10 billion ($200 million in round numbers) for this purpose, it would cover almost 1.2 million tourists, a good start.

9. As other areas become relatively free of new COVID-19 cases, they can be added to the Free Tourist Movement Zone.

Thanks to our country’s success in controlling coronavirus in key locations, for a limited time we have the opportunity to Re-Launch Philippine Tourism and beat our neighbors and tourism rivals to the punch. This might possibly ameliorate the severe country-wide economic damage that is already unfolding.

Or we can sit and do nothing.

(Manny Gonzalez has a unique background that includes lengthy stints at the World Bank-IFC and as an international and investment banker, after which he became a successful tourism

entrepreneur. He is author of “CRAZY WILD IDEAS - Outof-the-Box Solutions for Fixing the Philippines,” an ebook on Amazon Kindle.)