BURNHAM LAKE. The lake at the Burnham Park which is among the favorite attraction of tourists visiting Baguio City. (PNA photo by Liza T. Agoot)
BAGUIO CITY – The bulk of tourists allowed to enter here from October 22 until November 3 is from the National Capital Region (NCR), the city tourism office reported on Friday.
In a report, city tourism officer Aloysius Mapalo said of the 368 approved visitors, some 236 or 64.13 percent are from NCR.
Mapalo said the total was culled from the VIS.I.T.A-Baguio-gov.ph, the city’s online registration platform for tourists.
Baguio has opened its doors for tourists from different parts of Luzon last October 22, expanding the Ridge and Reef tourism bubble with Region 1 (Ilocos) provinces that was launched on September 22.
Before October 22 when Baguio's tourism was only for Region 1, there were only 15 visitors from the Ilocos Region that came up to the city.
While there were 1,412 who registered in the online portal for two weeks, the number of allowed tourists is only less than a third of those who applied.
“One of the major reasons for the pendency of the approval of the travel requests of interested visitors is the incomplete documents that were uploaded in the platform, thus, the same had been placed under pending status," Mapalo said.
He said the city and the tourism stakeholders have agreed to increase the arrival to 500 from the previous 200.
“But the same could change from time to time depending on the prevailing situation in the city,” he said.
He said tourists are now also allowed to stay with their friends and relatives In the city provided that they will declare them.
He added that tourists can have “do it yourself tours” which is now allowed under the revised guidelines.
Mapalo said it is still mandatory for tourists who register in the online platform so that they can get their Quick Response (QR) code, which will give them entry to the city.
He also said tourists who present their negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) or antigen test upon entry to the city will no longer be tested for coronavirus disease during their stay.
He added that the number of visitors to the city will definitely increase in the coming days since “the office is speeding up the approval of pending travel requests to help in gradually opening up the city’s tourism as part of the overall efforts to revive the local economy.” (PNA)
