The unpleasant experience in ports and passenger vessels by Filipinos in the past has discouraged most of them to include sea travel in their vacation plans.

Well, not anymore, according to Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) General Manager Jay Daniel Santiago as he highlighted major improvements in sea ports across the country in the past few years.

On Monday, Sept. 25, the PPA launched a local tourism campaign in a bid to erase such negative perception and to further promote “revenge travel” among the Filipinos, whose vacation plans were affected by Covid-19 restrictions.

Dubbed as #PPAsyalTayo, Santiago said their sea travel campaign is aimed at encouraging the public to try the new and improved ports across the country, which will eventually help the economy by local travel via sea.

“When we say sea travel, the most common misconception is that such mode of transportation is dirty, crowded and hot waiting areas and even delayed travel schedules,” said Santiago.

“We want to change those negative perceptions in sea travel. We want to show to the Filipino people that it is more enjoyable now to travel through our ports because of the major improvements that include air conditioned passenger terminal buildings,” he added.

Santiago explained that sea travel is also favorable for car owners since they could bring in their vehicles to their destinations compared to other mode of transportation.

While waiting for the passenger vessels to sail, he said there are plenty of options to satisfy cravings for local delicacies aside from the improved facilities that include comfort rooms, prayer rooms, play areas for kids and even charging stations for gadgets.

“Through our ports, our kababayan would be able to explore more tourist destinations because the Philippines is an archipelagic country,” said Santiago.

Revenge travel

After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the end of Covid-19 as a global public health emergency, more countries, including the Philippines, have relaxed travel restrictions causing people to make up for lost time during the pandemic.

This resulted in the popularity of the so-called "revenge travels” which allowed favorite travel destinations to return to life.

“Our #PPAsyalTayo campaign in time for the expected influx of passengers during 'Ber' months to further advocate traveling via improved and new seaports to boost the passenger operations of ports and help the economy by local travel via sea,” said Santiago.

The revenge travel was also manifested in the records of the PPA which showed that passenger traffic in its 25 port management offices increased to 59,192, 976 last year compared to only 23,076,974 in 2021.

The highest number of passengers recorded at almost six million were reached at the Port of Iloilo on said period, followed by the Ports of Batangas, Jordan (PMO Panay/ Guimaras), Babak (PMO Davao) and Calapan (PMO Mindoro).

Santiago said part of the improvements of the PPA is the completion of 13 projects which are all aimed at expanding passenger terminal buildings while ensuring their comfort.

At least 33 more projects are ongoing,19 of them are set to be completed by the end of 2023.

“It is expected that passenger traffic at ports will continually increase given the rebound of the economy and the tourism industry as we move forward to the post-pandemic phase and fortunately, we are prepared for this since even during the height of the pandemic, we pushed for the continuous construction and improvement of our facilities which we inaugurated and opened to the public in the past months,” said Santiago.

“Lakbay Pinas”

The launching of the PPA travel campaign also includes its latest #PPAsyalTayo Music video campaign which features travel destinations around the Philippines that can be accessed via sea ports.

Santiago said all the music video outputs are100 percent originally made and produced in-house by PPA and its employees with no additional budget allocation but only the utilization of available resources.

This includes, he said, the original song "Lakbay Pinas" which was composed and sung by the PPA Chorale.

“The #PPAsyalTayo Logo was also originally produced and created in-house without tapping outside sources. The logo tells the story of the places and ports any traveler can visit starting from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao,” said Santiago.

“The #PPAsyalTayo campaign is expected to bring a higher number of passengers at ports this ‘Ber months’ and help the local economy rebound from the reeling effects of the pandemic,” he added.