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ILOILO City – Koreans here are pushing for direct flights from Incheon, South Korea to Iloilo City, and vice versa.
According to Moon Dae Jin, president of the Iloilo Korean Association, there were around 2,000 of his countrymen in this city and they all felt safe despite Iloilo’s tag as a “bedrock of illegal drugs.”
January last year, Consul General Lee Ki-seog, who was based in the South Korean consulate in Cebu City, bared a vision for direct flights from Iloilo to Incheon “to attract more people to come here.”
Moon said most Koreans in Iloilo City were students but there were businessmen, too.
“The Koreans feel Iloilo is very safe compared to other cities in the Philippines,” said Moon.
In 2015, Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog of this city confirmed discussing the possibility of Iloilo-Incheon flights with an airline company. Nothing came out of it, however.
The Kalibo International Airport in Aklan, meanwhile, has been serving flights to and from South Korea since 2012. Most of the Korean arrivals are tourists vacationing in Boracay Island.
According to Moon, many Koreans considered Iloilo City safe, peaceful and clean.
Moon himself has been living in the city for 17 years now. He said he had been to many cities in the country but chose to reside here.
Western Visayas remains most popular among East Asian tourists, with 188,149 Korean arrivals and 177,208 Chinese arrivals in the first five months of 2017, Department of Tourism (DOT) data showed.
Last year, DOT Region 6 director Helen Catalbas said the department was ready to help the local government push for the direct flights to Incheon.
“We are willing to promote that Iloilo-Incheon flights, whether they are regular or chartered as long as we can sustain the market,” Catalbas said in January 2016.
The country welcomes an estimated one million Korean tourists annually. (PNA)
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