ILOILO City – The provincial government of Aklan is preparing for the reopening of Boracay Island but for domestic tourists only, specifically tourists from within Western Visayas.
“For the rest of June, we will be preparing for the eventual reopening. By July we will be ready for domestic tourists in Western Visayas,” said Gov. Florencio Miraflores on the sidelines of the meeting of the region’s local chief executives here yesterday.
Miraflores said they were preparing for a “soft opening” and that Tourism secretary Bernadette Puyat will be checking the island today.
Puyat said last week that the reopening of the island will rely on the Boracay Inter-agency Task Force, composed of herself, Secretary Roy Cimatu of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and Secretary Eduardo Año of the Department of Interior and Local Government Unit (DILG).
“[The] Boracay Inter-agency Task Force was extended for another year. So, the reopening will be under the Boracay Inter-agency Task Force,” Puyat said.
The provincial government of Aklan, according to Miraflores, is also in the process of accrediting establishments compliant with Department of Tourism (DOT) guidelines.
So far DOT has accredited hotels with a combined 360 rooms, he said.
“In the next two weeks, we will start inspecting all the hotels that have indicated their intent to open. We will make sure they really are compliant with all the safety requirements,” he said.
Miraflores lauded the proposal of Negros Occidental economic adviser Alfredo Benitez for the region to come up with a single application for a unified database that would capture movements of people in Western Visayas.
“The proposed Western Visayas Stay Safe application would really boost the movement of people and also help us open up our tourism industry,” the governor said.
The “Stay Safe” application is free, Benitez said. Each person will have a QR code either stored in the smart cellular phone or printed in their identification cards.
Upon arrival in a place, the QR Code will be scanned and will automatically register in the database the identity of the individual, time of arrival, and places that were visited.
“That is something we can promote and we can use as an added tool for contact tracing. In case a positive case is identified, we have the means and the technology to contact trace as soon as possible,” Benitez said. (PNA/PN)
