The Philippine Travel Agencies Associations (PTAA), the largest and most prestigious association of travel agencies in the country, has held its 5th Membership Meeting and launched the 10th Emerging Outbound Destinations last September 22, 2022 at the Hotel Lucky China Town in Binondo, Manila.
For the PTAA’s 10th Emerging Outbound Destinations, several presenters showcased new and untapped international travel destinations to promote outbound travel as well as provide local travelers attractive and interesting choices for international destinations.
During the event, the ambassadors from Israel and Egypt as well as representatives from the embassies of Turkey and USA were invited as guest speakers to provide updates on the status of their tourism industry and promote their different tourist attractions on their respective countries. Furthermore, they took the chance to discuss the travel opportunities in their countries and invited the public to visit and enjoy their unique and attractive tourist destinations.
As president of PTAA, Ms. Michelle Taylan presented in her report positive developments in the tourism industry and emphasized that the key to recovery is collaboration. She said “ PTAA has initiated collaborative work with different international travel organizations. It has met with members of Federation of Asean Travel Association (FATA) and Asean Tourism Association (ASEANTA) to exchange notes on how to work together and achieve a common goal for the tourism industry. It has also attended the travel fair organized by the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents ( MATTA). More importantly, it has signed a MOU between MATTA and PTAA on how to promote tourism in both countries especially the outbound travel. In addition, PTAA is also looking forward to partner with other foreign governments and embassies in finding common ground in working together in advancing tourism in the country. These cooperations between different travel organizations will surely reinvigorate outbound travel and eventually result in a robust international travel industry”.
For International tourism, Ms. Taylan said “ there has been strong signs of recovery since large number of people are now travelling after a two year pandemic”. She cited the United Nations World Tourism Organization ( UNWTO) study that in the first five months of this year almost 250 million international travelers have been recorded as compared to 77 millions travelers of the same period last year which means a more than 300% increase. “Though it still far from the pre pandemic figures, the number of tourist arrivals are very encouraging and it clearly shows that the tourism industry is on the road to recovery and hopefully will reach the pre-pandemic levels of tourist arrivals in the near future” she added.
In the local travel scene, industry sources estimate that expected tourist arrivals for 2022 will be at 1 million tourists. As of August of 2022, that number has been breached and a new projection of 1.4 million travelers has been set and industry stakeholders hope to reach this level at the end of the year.