Celebrity Life

Hotel sales and marketing professionals support reopening of tourism in the Philippines

By Racquel Quieta

The travel and tourism industry in the Philippines may have taken the biggest hit amid the pandemic, but tourism professionals in the country are not backing down and are still very eager to bounce back. Hence, many of them are in full support of the reopening of some of the popular tourist destinations such as Bohol, Boracay, and Palawan.

The HSMA leaders with Evangeline Imperial and Mr. Guillermo “Bill” Luz / Source: HSMA

During the press con for the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association's (HSMA) 6th Virtus Awards, notable speakers and industry professionals expressed their support to the government's decision on the resumption of leisure travel in select areas in the country and offered encouraging words to their colleagues in the industry.

Last year's winner of HSMA's Most Outstanding Sales and Marketing Leader award and Director of Sales and Marketing of Solaire Resort and Casino, Evangeline Imperial, emphasized the importance of turning a crisis into an opportunity.

She even quoted Rahm Emmanuel, the first White House Chief of Staff of former U.S. President Barrack Obama and former Mayor of Chicago, who once said, “You never want to waste a serious crisis.”

Evangeline explained, “What he (Rahm) meant to say is that it is an opportunity to do things, what you think we couldn't do. Now is the time to do it.”

She also encouraged everyone in the tourism industry to lead, get better, and transform despite the challenges brought about by the pandemic.

The keynote speaker during the press con was Mr. Guillermo “Bill” Luz, Chief Resilience Officer of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation. In his speech he underlined the need to strike a balance between reopening the economy and prioritizing COVID-19 prevention.

“From my perspective, we will need to balance lives with livelihood. Focusing exclusively on health by locking down the economy will take its toll on human suffering in the form of loss of livelihoods, loss of incomes, rising hunger, and possibly additional non-COVID health risks.

“But focusing too much on opening up the economy can result in increased spread of COVID and the potential to overwhelm the public health system and more deaths.

“I believe we can find that balance if we combine some creativity and discipline in our approach to preventing the spread of COVID as we open up more businesses.

Mr. Luz also believes that the “government policy is moving in the right direction”, but there's more work to be done.

He enumerated, “…working with local government units to allow more flights into their cities, building more testing centers in the provinces (about two-thirds of the testing capacity is in Metro Manila), and making sure that provincial hospitals are well-equipped.

He also said that the road to recovery will be a difficult one, but he's confident that it can be traversed. He also lauded the Virtus Awards for introducing two new, special categories recognizing “Champions of Resilience” or those with exceptional COVID-19 response efforts.

Department of Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat during her speech. / Source: HSMA

Department of Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat also gave a speech during the press con, where she lauded the adaptability of tourism professionals and expressed her optimism with the resumption of leisure travel in some of the country's top destinations.

“Our industry has undergone massive changes in recent months. Along with having to comply with the new regulation and protocols to address public health and safety, practitioners and stakeholders in the hospitality sector are having to deal with evolving customer preferences and needs.

“I hope everyone will continue to be inspired in finding new, exciting ways to encourage travelers to visit, or creating new packages or promotions that are in tuned with the times.”

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Check out also the 'new normal' requirements for domestic travel in the Philippines.