Cebu Pacific said Tuesday it is on track to hit the target of 22 million passengers this year despite the closure of Boracay Island, the country’s top resort island.
“Even with closure of Boracay, we’re seeing tremendous growth in tourism, double-digit so you can imagine the increase when it reopens on Oct. 26,” Cebu Pacific president and chief executive Lance Gokongwei told reporters on the sidelines of the launching of Juan Effect, a sustainable tourism program with the Tourism Department.
“We saw an opportunity to redeploy the aircraft flying to Boracay to additional destinations such as Busuanga, Siargao and Negros Oriental. Those that are not quite in the limelight like Boracay, they suddenly sprouted. And I think it’s good because it’s creating opportunity to build more legs to our tourism strategy. Not only Boracay and Cebu. Now there’s four or five jewels,” he said.
Cebu Pacific is the market leader with a 42-percent of total seat capacity in Caticlan, the gateway to Boracay. This includes a 14-percent share of its turboprop subsidiary Cebgo and 28 percent of its main jet operation.
Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said the shutdown of Boracay did not affect the number of foreign tourists visiting the country.
“We’re more excited. Imagine, the closure of our number one tourist destination did not affect tourist arrivals. In fact, it increased. Imagine with the opening,” Romulo-Puyat said.
“Well, there are more tourists coming, and they look at other destinations such as Mactan, Bohol, Siargao, Palawan. They went to other destinations,” she said.
Data from the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation showed that about one million of the 6.6 million overseas visitors to the Philippines in 2017 stopped in Boracay.
Boracay is popular with Chinese and South Korean visitors, which are the largest markets for the Philippine tourism industry.
Chinese visitor arrivals in the Philippines increased 43 percent in 2017 to nearly 1 million, while South Korean visitors rose 9 percent to 1.6 million.
Cebu Pacific teamed up with the DOT to launch Juan Effect, a sustainable tourism program, aimed at engaging travelers and local stakeholders alike, to mitigate the impact of tourist arrivals on the environment.
Juan Effect aims to encourage responsible travel among passengers and empower everyone to change at least one everyday habit.
Juan Effect will collaborate with island stakeholders to concerted action for the conservation of the environment.
Siargao will serve as the Juan Effect pilot module, where the airline together with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, local government units and tourism associations, will work together to implement sustainable tourism action plans.
