Baguio tourism back to pre-pandemic levels
BAGUIO CITY: The city government said the number of tourist arrivals in the city this year has so far reached prepandemic levels at no less than 150,000 per month since March.
Supervising City Tourism Operations Officer Aloysius Mapalo reported that an estimated 1.2 million visitors trooped to Baguio in the last nine months.
He noted the conduct of various tourism-related activities over the past several months contributed to enticing tourists to visit the city and become aware of its rich culture and history as a designated Creative City for Crafts and Folk Arts by no less than the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
The city tourism officer noted that the road to recovery of the city’s tourism industry is in the right direction, especially with the lined-up activities for the holidays and the much-awaited Baguio Flower Festival, popularly known as Panagbenga, which will likely contribute to reviving the local economy further.
Mapalo however said that despite the presence of the Visitors Information and Travel Assistance (Visita) registration platform, the recorded number of tourists by the accredited tourism-related establishments does not still reflect the real state of the local tourism industry because of unrecorded, unreported and undeclared day tourists.
He said more than 50 percent of the tourists arriving in the city are yet to be reported or declared due to the absence of mechanisms that will require their registration, especially in accredited accommodation establishments if they decide to stay in the city.
In 2019, the city recorded more than 1.57 million tourist arrivals based on data records by accredited accommodation establishments alone, while in 2020, the number of tourist arrivals drastically dipped to only 268,000 following the implementation of the series of lockdowns to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
In 2021, the city was able to report no less than 300,000 visitors because of Covid restrictions.
In terms of the financial aspect, Mapalo said the city and local businesses have a rough estimate of more than P7 billion in income for both the local government and the private sector.
He assured concerned tourism industry stakeholders that the city government is doing its best to sustain the promotion of the city as one of the premier tourist destinations in the country.