ILOILO City – “Massive” was how Aklan’s Gov. Florencio Miraflores described the cancellation of hotel bookings – mostly by foreign tourists – in Boracay Island due to the novel coronavirus scare. But he hoped the cancellations would be offset by local tourists that continue to visit the world-famous island.
“Boracay is certainly open for business…We’re hoping that the domestic market can compensate for lost foreign guests,” Miraflores said during a visit to the Iloilo provincial capitol yesterday.
Particularly hurting, according to the governor, were Boracay resorts and hotels catering to tourists coming in droves via chartered flights from China. Due to the temporary travel ban imposed by President Rodrigo Duterte on flights from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, the number of their Chinese clients dropped.
Chinese nationals are the top foreign visitors in Boracay. Last year the island was visited by 434,175 Chinese tourists – 41.84 percent of the total 1,032,619 foreigners that visited Boracay.
“Daku gid ang impact. We have barely recovered from the island’s six-month closure in 2018 and last December’s onslaught of typhoon ‘Ursula’. Now we have this massive cancellation of hotel bookings by foreign tourists and even some local tourists wary of the novel coronavirus,” lamented Miraflores who attended yesterday’s joint meeting of the Regional Development Council and Regional Peace and Order Council here.
He assured domestic and foreign tourists that Boracay remains safe and free from the virus.
The provincial government of Aklan has taken precautionary measures such as setting up an isolation room at the Dr. Rafael S. Tumbokon Memorial Hospital where suspected cases would be confined, he added.
There are also personal protective equipment for health workers, said Miraflores.
According to the governor, a temporarily holding facility / quarantine area was also identified – the government-run training center in Kalibo, Aklan which the Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) would be operating.
Early this week, the liaison officer to Boracay of the Chinese Embassy, Peter Tay, expressed fear that the travel ban ordered by the national government could hurt “deeper” into the tourism businesses and travel spending of the visitors in Boracay.
“This is worse than Boracay’s closure; we don’t know when the situation is going to end,” Tay said.
Boracay was closed for a massive environmental rehabilitation from April to October 2018.
On Wednesday, the local government of Malay, Aklan went on damage control mode after its Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office chief claimed on Tuesday the municipality was struggling to monitor some 2,000 mostly Chinese tourists in Boracay for possible nCoV infection.
“No virus in paradise: Boracay Island is safe and free from 2019-nCoV”, blared its statement.
In a separate bulletin, the Malay local government also clarified it has 429 – not 2,000 – “persons under monitoring” (PUMs) in Boracay.
PUMs are individuals with a history of travel to China or history of contact with a known confirmed nCoV case but do not manifest signs and symptoms.
The nCoV originated from Wuhan City, China. It causes severe acute respiratory infection and symptoms usually start with a fever, followed by a dry cough.
On Tuesday, Malay’s Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office chief Catherine Fulgencio said her local government unit (LGU) was having a hard time monitoring 2,000 mostly Chinese tourists in Boracay and thus appealed for help from the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
“The reported 2,000 Chinese…are actually the number of (tourist) arrivals reported by the Municipal Tourism Office from the period of Jan. 25 to Feb. 3, 2020,” clarified the bulletin.
Since most of them already left the country, the municipality is left with 429 persons to be monitored, it stressed.
“The municipality of Malay assures the public that the Malay Inter-Agency Task Force Against the 2019 Novel Coronavirus and the Municipal Health Office are on high alert since Day 1 and is closely monitoring all ‘persons under monitoring’ (PUMs) within our municipality as per Department of Health (DOH) guidelines,” stressed the local government./PN
