AKLAN – Soon, tourists fully vaccinated against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) would be allowed entry to the world-renowned Boracay Island sans their reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test results.
But that’s when all residents of the island are already fully vaccinated against the viral disease, according to Gov. Florencio Miraflores.
“We will just require our tourists to present vaccination certificates,” Miraflores said in a virtual press conference of the Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force yesterday.
However, the governor emphasized that the vaccination certificate with quick response (QR) code must be issued by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
This is to make sure all inbound travelers are indeed vaccinated, according to Miraflores.
“We hope that opening the island to fully vaccinated tourists would ensure the recovery of our tourism industry,” he added.
‘FULLY VAXXED’ BORACAY BY END-OCT.
Boracay Island is eyeing to be the first tourism destination in the Philippines to reach 100-percent vaccinated status, according to Department of Tourism (DOT) secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat.
“We expect (to achieve) that by the end of the month, all tourism workers and residents,” Romulo-Puyat said.
As of Oct. 19, Romulo-Puyat reported, 77.87 percent of the target 24,451 individuals, including residents and tourism frontliners, were already been vaccinated against COVID-19.
For tourism frontliners alone, the tourism top executive said 91.96 percent or 11,179 out of the target 12,809 active tourism frontliners were vaccinated. These included tricycle drivers, massage therapists and vendors in souvenirs shops, among others.
According to Miraflores, the vaccination roll-out is ongoing.
Just recently, he noted that Aklan received over 35,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine.
Currently, Boracay had only one active COVID case, said Romulo-Puyat.
She attributed the steady decline in cases to the island’s aggressive vaccination and to the dedication of tourism stakeholders to comply with the mandated protocols and safety guidelines.
As of Oct. 18, DOT had certified 29 accommodation establishments and one travel and tour agency with one government-issued safety seal while also accrediting 299 accommodation establishments, for a total of 12,452 rooms and 28 tour guides.
“Boracay is also one of the three tourism destinations in the country to have been awarded the WTTC (World Travel & Tourism Council) Safe Travels Stamp, indicating the island complies with the globally recognized standards for health and safety,” said Romulo-Puyat.
The secretary said for this month (as of Oct. 19), Boracay had 14, 648 tourist arrivals, significantly higher than October 2020’s 1,075.
Also, from January to October 2021, a total of 131,879 visitors entered Boracay.
“We hope that when Boracay finally is ‘fully vaccinated’ we will get more tourists lalo na malapit na ang Pasko,” said Romul-Puyat./PN
