BAGUIO CITY (PNA) – Majority of the tourists, who have been allowed to enter this city 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 that, of the 368 approved visitors, 236 – or 64.13 percent – were 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 opened its doors to 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 opened only for Region 1 visitors, there were only 15 visitors from the Ilocos Region, who came up to the city.
While there were 1,412, who registered in the online portal for two weeks, the number of tourists allowed into the city was 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 were now allowed to stay with their friends and relatives in the city, provided that they will declare this upon registration.
He added that tourists can have “do it yourself tours”, which would now be allowed under the revised guidelines.