DAVAO CITY (PIA) - The Department of Tourism is still bullish about the growth of the tourism industry despite the novel coronavirus shutting down the Chinese tourism market.

"In DOT we're always looking strategic, we're expecting that in any given time there are challenges along the way, so we take it as part of the growth but moving forward we still look forward for robust growth in terms of tourism," Department of Tourism Undersecretary Art Boncato.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has issued a temporary travel ban on travelers coming from China, Honkong and Macau as the 2019 novel coronavirus (nCoV) infections continued to rise. The Philippines recorded three confirmed patients with nCoV, all Chinese tourists from Wuhan, a 44-year old patient died, becoming the first nCoV fatality outside China.

The temporary ban has virtually shut the large outbound Chinese tourism market. However Boncato is hopeful despite the challenges.

"Our strategy is to continue the growth, if some of our markets are weak now, we will concentrate on other markets for the meantime," Boncato said.

Among the plans include creating new markets, Boncato cited the DOT-XI regional office under Regional Director Tanya Rabat Tan who is planning a business mission to Qatar and to BIMP-EAGA (Brunei Indonesia Malaysia Philippines East Asean Growth Area).

"These markets (Middle East, BIMP-EAGA) are rapidly growing just like China which is very strong," Boncato said.

Tourists from the Peoples Republic of China are the second largest number of foreign tourists coming to the Philippines next to tourists from South Korea. In 2019 there were about 1.499 million Chinese tourists to the Philippines. The Philippines had a historic 8 million tourist arrivals in 2019.

Aside from South Korea and China, the United States is the third largest source of tourists to the country while fourth is Japan followed by Taiwan (Republic of China).

Boncato said that based on the national tourism development plan the country is targeting 9.2 million foreign tourists to visit the country this year. (PIA/RG Alama)