Visa free entry to the Philippines
In what can be termed as providing a major fillip to the Visit Philippines Year 2015, the Philippines is planning to lift visa requirements for Indian and Chinese tourists.
Indians may soon require no visa to go to the Philippines. Secretary of Tourism (Philippines), Ramon R Jimenez, Jr who was recently in India, talked about the fact that the country is exploring the possibility of lifting visa requirements for Indians on an experimental basis for 2015-16. Speaking to ,
R Glen Agustin, Chief, Tourism Operations Officer, India Market Development Group, Philippine Department of Tourism, says, “The Secretary has announced that he has recommended to the President, Benigno Simeon C. Aguino, III to extend a visa free facility for Indian as well as Chinese tourists for 2015 to 2016. He mentioned that his recommendation may be decided upon before the end of the first quarter this year. If approved, this facility is going to be in effect from 2015 up to the end of 2016. This is being done to support the Visit Philippines Year 2015 and to provide additional arrivals from China (the number 4 tourist source market with more than 1.3 billion population) and India (the number 13 tourist source market with more than 1.2 billion population) to help reach the goal of 10 million tourists by 2016.”
QYou
are in India for less than 24 hours and you’ve had a hectic day; as the Philippines Tourism Minister, how has your experience in India been so far and how important is the Indian market?
The experience has been very energising. I always like coming to New Delhi especially this time around because we are presiding over some very important things, primary of which is to invite the people of India to come to the Philippines. To answer how important Indian market is for us, we should first ask, how important a country is India. India is one of the most important countries in Asia. The feeling in the Phillippines is that we should have a larger share of the very rapidly growing Indian market. India is definitely one of our top 10 priorities, and for 2015, it is on top of our priority list.
QWhat
is your target for the Indian market and how do you hope to achieve it?
We want the growth of the Indian market, which is now below a 100,000 people a year, to be at a quarter of a million people by 2016. We are determined to do some very serious communication and marketing promotions to bring it to that level and one of the very clear indications that we are very serious about it is that India is the first place we are launching the ‘Visit the Philippines Year 2015’. We think, in the next few months and hopefully for the rest of the decade, the Philippines will be able to fix all the connectivity problems and visa facilitation problems that persist up till today. The Philippines Government policy is to make sure that we are working harder to make it easier for the people of India to enjoy the Philippines.
QHow
fast has the growth in the Indian market been for the Philippines?
In 2014, the India market grew by 16% that's faster than most critical markets for the Philippines, we are very proud of that. Soon, we will have taxi cabs with the Philippines brand all over and that has never happened before.
QEvery
foreign tourism board is busy wooing the India MICE sector, how important is the Indian MICE crowd for the Philippines?
The space that the Philippines has created for MICE business conventions has grown by over 200% in the last four years. We have almost two times the number of convention centres that we used to have. The Philippines is one of the most experienced MICE operators in Asia. We are veterans of all kinds of very important meetings like APEC, which we are hosting again this year for the third time in its history. We have hosted ADB, World Economic Forum, IMF, World Bank and very recently we hosted the Pope, if you consider that a MICE convention as it involved six million people. We are very optimistic about the MICE business and one of the major advantages is that the Philippines has a very experienced and professional MICE staff. It's very easy to organise a meeting in the Philippines because the language barrier is of no issue.
QYou
have also met Indian Tourism Minister Dr. Mahesh Sharma, what transpired during the talks?
The Minister pointed out that there have been
very
The feeling in the Phillippines is that we should have a larger share of the very rapidly growing Indian market. India is definitely one of our top 10 priorities, and for 2015, it is on top of our priority list
Ramon R Jimenez, Jr
Secretary of Tourism (Philippines)
significant gains in visa facilitation and Visa-on-Arrival for Indian tourists and he expressed hope that it would become easier soon. He also offered to do as much as he can to encourage the people of India to visit the Philippines. I, in turn, promised that I would help him convince Filipinos to go to India. This exchange is very important because very few people know that the Filipino tourist numbers going in to India grew at the same rate as the Indians going in to the Philippines. There is this reciprocity taking place. I also extended an invitation to the Indian minister to visit the Philippines and he said he's looking forward to pay us a visit. There is already a very strong memorandum of understanding to develop each other's tourism products. One very specific agreement is that we have both agreed to have a very concrete specific exchange programme on culinary arts and hotel and tourism management between the two countries. The minister expressed great interest in people from India learning something from our institutes from Manila and other places.