House, govt' urged to find ways to cushion nCoV's tourism impact

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano urged the House Committees on Tourism and on Economic Affairs to start coordinating with the Department of Tourism to assess the short- and medium-term effects the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) had on the country's tourism and travel industry.

In a statement on Monday, Cayetano stressed the need to come up with measures to cushion the impact of the global health problem and harness other tourism markets.

“We acknowledge the necessity of the decision of some airlines to cancel flights and the government’s imposition of a temporary travel ban from Hubei, China and other provinces of China that are seriously affected by the dreaded 2019-nCoV, but we still have to prepare a plan to lessen its impact," he said.

According to Cayetano, the House of Representatives was willing to work with the tourism and services sector so that tourism growth in the country would not be hampered in the succeeding months.

At the same time, Cayetano said the country should also be ready in case the virus outbreak was prolonged.

"It should not be a just a wait-and-see attitude because we don’t want our tourism industry to suffer,” he said.

Citing records from the DOT, Cayetano said that a total of 1.63 million of the total 7.4 million international tourist arrivals from January to November last year were Chinese.

He added that with many Chinese travelers touring around Asia-Pacific region every year, the 2019-nCoV outbreak “will definitely take a toll” on airlines, hotel and accommodations, restaurants, conferences, sporting events, leisure and gaming, and retail.

Cayetano also urged various Philippine government agencies to work on a comprehensive contingency plan to mitigate the impact of the disease not just on the tourism industry but on other sectors as well.

“The government must pool its resources to prevent this public health issue from becoming an economic crisis," he said.

As of Monday, there were two confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV in the country.

A total of 80 patients had been tagged as persons under investigation for the disease in the country, 67 of whom were currently admitted in hospitals while 10 had been discharged. — DVM, GMA News